Aidan took a couple of tiny squat-steps into the tunnel when an alarming thought occurred to him: He had left his precious scroll way back on the ledge where he had slept!
I’ve got to get it!
He tried to turn around, but the cave floor sloped downward and was slippery like a newly waxed floor. In trying to clamber out, he lost his footing and began to slide.
Aidan yelled and clawed at the edge of the opening, trying to gain a hold, but he failed. With a final shriek, Aidan rolled onto his back and slid helplessly down the tunnel into the heart of the mountain.
Carrying Aidan’s scroll like carpet installers delivering a huge rug, three of the dark, pale-eyed creatures came trotting along the path outside the opening to the tunnel.
The middle one hopped up on the first one’s shoulders, and the last one scrambled up atop the other two. With a wobbly effort, they hoisted Aidan’s scroll up to the edge of the tunnel’s opening. The scroll lay balanced on the edge until the top critter lunged upward to knock it forward. The scroll launched over the edge, but so did the highest creature!
Together, they sailed down the tunnel, following Aidan into the unknown.
10
THE GATE OF DESPAIR
A idan’s screams echoed as he flew down the smooth tunnel through the mountain. Nothing he tried could stop nor slow his descent, for the tunnel wound through the depths of the mountain at a steep angle. With every unexpected turn in the passage, with every jarring bump, Aidan expected to die. Smashed into a rock wall, skewered on a stalagmite, or wedged forever in some black crevice of the mountain.
How long can this go on? he wondered. And some distant part of Aidan thought, This would be kind of fun, if I wasn’t about to die.
Aidan blinked as the thin air whooshed past him. His view was the same, eyes closed or eyes open. Black. And still he slid.
Aidan strained his neck trying valiantly to see where he might be headed. At first, there was nothing. Then, far in the distance, he saw a few points of pale yellow light. Then there were more than a few. Then there were many. Aidan swallowed hard.
Before he knew it, he was right in the midst of them-like swarms of stars on all sides. Aidan whooshed through them, fearfully trying to figure out what they were. Some kind of luminous stones, maybe? Sparks? Subterranean lightning bugs? Or maybe…
Eyes! They are eyes! Aidan could see only blurs and flashes, but he felt sure they were eyes. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them winked and blinked as Aidan slapped and scraped to keep them away.
Fed by this new terror, Aidan thought that perhaps the little glowing eyes belonged to the parasites of a gigantic beast that disguised itself as a mountain! The tunnel was actually its enormous esophagus, and Aidan would soon enter the great beast’s stomach and be dissolved in its digestive juices.
Aidan yelled, shut his eyes, and launched out of the backside of the mountain. His momentum carried him safely over some jagged rocks. With a plop, he landed in a pool of something dark and wet.
Thinking he was in the creature’s stomach, Aidan felt the sting of the acid beginning to eat away at his flesh. He splashed furiously and then stopped when it dawned on him that he wasn’t in acid. He opened his eyes and stood up in the chest-deep water.
“Right, Aidan. It was a mountain monster!” Robby would have said. Aidan shook his head and laughed quietly at himself. The scrapes and cuts still stung, but at least he wasn’t being digested.
Aidan heard a noise high behind him and stopped laughing. He spun around and looked up at the backside of the mountain. The tunnel exit was forty feet up and the noise, a high-pitched squeal now, emanated from it. The sound grew louder.
Something long shot out of the tunnel, followed by something round and dark. In a split second Aidan recognized the first item: his scroll! He backed up like a center fielder awaiting a fly ball. Then he identified the second item: It was one of the creatures he had seen on the ledge the night before!
He didn’t want that thing to land on him. But he didn’t want the scroll to land in the water either. Something happened at that moment. Aidan didn’t think; he just acted.
He took two slow steps backward and reached up with his left hand while simultaneously feeling for the edge of the pool with his right. He caught the scroll and vaulted up onto dry ground just as the dark ball hit the water.
Aidan was stunned for a moment. Never in his life had he pulled off a move like that. That was… that was almost athletic! Aidan thought, feeling a little proud.
A few moments later, a small wet face poked up out of the water. It had large, pale yellow eyes that blinked continuously and a shiny black nose much like that of a bear cub. It looked at Aidan, emitted a gurgling growl, and began to emerge from the pool.
Ordinarily, Aidan would have been off and running, but the creature crawling out of the water was more peculiar than it was threatening. It had dark wiry hairs running back from its widow’s-peaked scalp and similar fir covering its four sodden limbs. Long, fingerlike silver talons protruded in groups of three from each paw.
On the animal’s back were rows and rows of sharp gray quills like a porcupine’s or a hedgehog’s, but the quills were webbed together by leathery folds of dark skin. The folds extended and retracted so that the rows of quills combed each other. It seemed to be cleaning-or drying-itself. After several such combings, the thing shook like a wet dog, spraying droplets of water everywhere- even onto Aidan’s shoes.
Then, to Aidan’s complete surprise, the creature curled up like a pill bug and began to roll. Aidan watched it cruise about twenty feet before it disappeared into a large round hole in the ground.
Another tunnel, Aidan thought. Some distant part of him wondered if he could take one of those rolly-creatures home with him. They were cute, but Aidan figured such a creature would dig up the yard and give his father fits. Aidan smiled.
Shivering from the wetness and the cold, he turned and looked back up at the mountain behind him. It was dark and towering and gave the sense that it might shift and topple at any moment, crushing anything beneath it. It was dizzying, and Aidan turned away. He had made it over… through, actually, and that was enough.
Aidan unrolled the scroll to look again at the map. His original goal had been to get over the mountain to find out what the flag symbol stood for. He had hoped it might be a castle-maybe even the Castle of Alleble-but there weren’t any man-made structures anywhere in sight.
The sky was red and purple like fiery paints threatening to spill upward over the dark sky canvas, but the distant mountains still hid the sun’s full brilliance. To the left, the mountain range stretched out like a severe fence of stone. Straight ahead were miles of wasteland, uneven ground, pocked and rent with pitfalls and shadowy holes. And to the right, the dark mountain curled and jutted, creating a series of coves.
No flag, no castle… no plan.
Aidan secured his scroll with the leather lace and placed it safely away from the edge of the pond. He looked down at the dark water.
It might be okay to drink. Or it might not. Aidan was too thirsty to care. He cupped his hands, drank several mouthfuls, and watched the sun climb above the distant peaks.
It was dawn. And in the new light, Aidan saw a wispy tendril of smoke rising from one of the coves to his right. Smoke meant fire, and fire meant civilization! A warm, crackling fire to dry off by sounded good to Aidan, so he set off in the direction of the smoke. Moving as swiftly as his sore, achy body would allow, he leaped over several holes like the one the creature rolled into before. Eventually, he had to slow down, for the terrain began to rise as he neared a high ridge.
The smoke came from directly behind the stony ridge, so once again, Aidan climbed. Compared to the long journey up the mountain the day before, it was an easy ascent.
Just then, a trumpet rang out from the other side of the ridge. It was not the proud blast of royalty, however. It sounded more like the dying scream of a large bird. Aidan remained very still, and he gri
pped the stone so hard his knuckles whitened. He had a terrible feeling that he was headed in the wrong direction, but he was just a few feet from where he might see what was on the other side of the ridge.
Moving an inch at a time, Aidan climbed closer until he could peek over the edge. Looking into the cavernous valley, what he saw stole away his breath and most of his hope. A long convoy of soldiers was entering the cove from the wastelands beyond. He could see knights in black armor riding horses and pulling people on foot chained at the neck, wrists, and ankles. All moved toward a pair of tall arched doors that were cut into the mountain. Foul black smoke escaped the thin fissure between the doors and rose like a shadow of a serpent into the sky.
A soldier in the lead of the convoy blew his trumpet once more. A second trumpet answered from some unseen opening in the rock near the doors. The caravan halted. Great belches of smoke escaped as the heavy doors swung outward.
The convoy resumed its march, and the first wave of knights began to pass within the mountain. But there was some trouble with the prisoners. They screamed and violently pulled against their captors. They clutched their own chains and dug in their heels to avoid entering the place in the mountain from which the black smoke rose. The soldiers in front spurred their horses, and the soldiers behind pressed into the prisoners, forcing them forward. They were dragged-some still struggling, some limp-into the smoky darkness.
When the last of the soldiers passed into the mountain, the great stone doors slowly closed. Aidan stared, transfixed, unable to look away and yet not wanting to see.
“You there, on the rock!” A soldier in black stood on a ledge just below Aidan. “Who are you? The Prince does not take kindly to trespassers!”
Aidan struggled to his feet. He looked left and right, adrenaline surging.
“Stay right there!” the knight yelled. He began to climb up after Aidan.
Aidan turned and leaped back down the way he had come.
“Don’t move, you!” Aidan heard the soldier shouting as he ran. He also heard the distinctive metallic ring of a sword being drawn. Aidan panicked.
He bounded down the ridge, groaning with each awkward landing. He knew the knight in black must be right behind him, and he knew there really was nowhere to go.
A million hopeless options of escape flickered in his mind, but he knew the knight would get him first. Suddenly, Aidan heard a swooshing sound.
Aidan stopped running.
“There now, that’s better! Stay where you are!”
Aidan turned and saw the knight leap down from a cleft of rock. He wore a black masked helmet, so Aidan couldn’t see his face. But Aidan feared the soldier would either kill him on the spot or drag him like the others into the dark place in the mountain.
The knight was only a few feet away when a shadow passed over them both. There was another Swoosh! Swoosh! and the knight looked up into the sky. He raised his shield as if to ward off a blow.
Just as Aidan looked into the sky and drew in a breath to scream, a burst of wind slammed him and the soldier to the ground. The wind brought with it an overwhelming warm and beastly smell, with a tinge of smoke or ash. A dragon! Aidan’s imagination raced as he struggled between utter disbelief and paralyzing fear. Debris rotated in the violent winds. Aidan tried to cover his eyes, but the force of the turbulence was too powerful. He shrieked, turned on his stomach, and frantically clawed at the dirt trying to get away.
The creature’s enormous dark wings eclipsed the sun as the beast hovered ominously above. A thunderous roar rang out and echoed violently off the mountains, and Aidan could just make out the soldier running madly away.
The beast roared again and looked directly at Aidan. Covering his face with his hands, Aidan curled into a ball. The dragon’s talons closed around Aidan’s waist like gigantic pliers. Aidan pried at them with all his might, but it was hopeless. Another deafening roar blasted from the creature’s lungs, and being so near to the colossal beast, Aidan couldn’t bear the sound. He lost consciousness as the dragon gently lifted him from the ground and took to the air.
When Aidan awoke, it was dark. He lay on his back, his arm curled around his old down pillow and the covers pulled snugly up to his chin.
As the blurring effects of sleep wore off, his memory returned in a rush. It had me. I should be dead. The dra-dragon? Oh, man. What a crazy dream!
A dream-that’s all it had been. A door to another world, a unicorn, little creatures with glowing eyes, and a dragon!! Aidan sighed with relief. It was a good thing he had been dreaming. There would have been no escape from the dragon’s viselike clutches. And even if he had broken free of the dragon, one of those dark knights would’ve no doubt dragged him off to that terrible place in the mountain.
Aidan shuddered, took a deep breath, and sank deeper into his bed. Relieved as he was, some distant part of Aidan was disappointed. The dream had been the adventure he’d always wanted.
And, come to think of it, I was pretty brave to climb that mountain- even if it was just a dream. Aidan smiled lazily.
Feeling very safe, he hugged his pillow tightly and closed his eyes. Aidan relaxed and was at peace in the darkness… Then Aidan’s smile faded. Something isn’t quite right.
11
PECULIAR COMPANY
T he bed was comfortable, plush, and wide, with layers of blankets, but there was no light coming from the side of his room where the window was supposed to be. There was a strange scent in the air too. Aidan thought he had smelled it before, but he could not remember when. And Aidan’s favorite down pillow didn’t feel soft and fluffy like it was supposed to.
Aidan’s heart skipped a beat. Chills and gooseflesh raced all over his body, for Aidan suddenly didn’t know what his arm was curled around.
Aidan let his fingers slide over this thing that lay under his arm and across his shoulder. It certainly wasn’t fuzzy or furry. It felt leathery and ragged, like it was covered with shingles… or maybe, maybe… they were scales? SCALES?!!
“Ya-yaahhh!!!” The scream exploded from Aidan’s lips like a great bubble popping. He sat up from the covers to stare wide-eyed into the darkness.
Aidan felt something heavy slithering off the bed.
A blue flash lit the room, and Aidan could see the creature sitting like a great big cat in the middle of the stone floor. It had not been a dream after all! Aidan squirmed frantically backward, bashing his head into the enormous solid-wood headboard.
“Do not fear,” a musical female voice said. “You are safe here.”
Aidan could only stare at the monstrous, unearthly creature that had slid from the bed and now seemed to be speaking to him.
The beast raised its head slowly. Blue, fiery slanted eyes squinted at Aidan and blinked.
Aidan blinked back and then blinked again. But each time he opened his eyes it was still there: a real dragon!
The creature squatted on its thickly muscled hind legs and smaller ropey forelegs. Broad wings were folded like huge leather coats behind its body, and its neck and tail were as long as and as thick as anacondas. It had gray flesh on its underside and was armored with silvery scales that here and there reflected the flickering blue light. The dragon’s head was long like a horse’s and tapered to a very narrow snout, dappled with patches of those silver scales on its enormous high cheekbones.
Its lengthy jaws opened, baring dozens of needlelike teeth-and it swung its head forward toward Aidan. Aidan cringed.
But instead of the piercing pain of sharp teeth, he felt a huge, slimy, sticky tongue slap wetly across his face. The creature’s tongue almost knocked Aidan out of the bed.
“I told you… you are safe here,” the voice said again. “The dragon’s name is Gabby. She likes you.”
Aidan wiped some goo off of his face and stared at the beast. It ducked its head shyly, bared its teeth again, and began emitting a deep, rumbling purr.
“Welcome to the Castle of Alleble,” began the melodic voice again. “You are a guest of
the King, so you have nothing to fear.”
It occurred to Aidan that the voice was not coming from the dragon.
Aidan turned to the voice and nearly jumped out of his skin a second time. There at the foot of the enormous bed was a being- a girl. Aidan thought she was about his age, but he wasn’t certain.
Her long gossamer dress of lavender was studded with brilliant multicolored jewels, and they sparkled, reflecting the flickering blue light of the candle in her left hand. But her skin, her skin was ghostly white, seemingly glowing in the shadowy room. Her eyes, like perfect blue gems, were ablaze and held Aidan still in spite of his fear.
“You are very fortunate to be here. Many who wander off the path become lost. We sent Gabby to go and find you. I’m sorry she gave you such a fright.”
Aidan could not speak, but his teeth ground audibly. The spectral girl guessed Aidan’s fear and spoke again. “You have never seen a being like me before. Do not fear. You could not be safer.”
“Are you… are you a ghost?” Aidan asked.
“Ghost?” she replied, considering the word. “No, I am not a spirit, shade, or apparition. I am a living Glimpse. I am very much like you, as a matter of fact.”
“But you’re glowing, and I can see through you, uh-well, sort of,” he said. As Aidan stared at her, he realized that she wasn’t actually transparent. But when she moved, she shimmered like a bright reflection rippling in a lake at night.
“No, your eyes just aren’t used to seeing Glimpse-kind.” She seemed to float around the bed closer to Aidan. “I have flesh and bone-here, touch my arm.”
Aidan’s eyes bulged, and he backed again into the headboard. She reached for Aidan’s arm, but he jerked away.
She had said he was safe, but Aidan was not yet convinced. Undaunted, she gently placed her hand on Aidan’s shoulder.
“Trust your heart, for I am a friend,” she assured him. Aidan had expected her hand to feel cold and dead, but instead, her touch brought warmth and a wonderful tingle. Aidan looked up at her and was enchanted once again by her eyes. His fear left.
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