by Bill Allen
“Are you saying you’re not powerful enough?”
Agni scowled. “You would do best not to challenge my power.”
“Can you do it or not?”
“Not in one jump, no. But perhaps partway, if I can picture a location well enough in my mind.”
Greg exhaled deeply. “No time like the present.”
Again Agni scowled. “Go lead your army. I will do what I can.”
Greg ran alongside the formation as Ryder shouted the order to move out, and joined Melvin and Lucky at the front. He felt as if they had been marching for only seconds before the scene ahead of him began to shimmer. The trees ahead seemed to meld together into one big blur, then suddenly he stood in a deep gully filled with fog.
“What just happened?” Lucky asked.
“Hopefully we just shaved a few days off this journey,” said Greg. “I wonder where we are.”
“We’re in the Smoky Mountains,” Melvin told him.
“Really?” said Greg. “We have a mountain range by the same name back home.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have dragons in your world,” Lucky said.
“We don’t.”
“Well, why are your mountains smoky?”
Greg quickly dropped the subject.
If the men behind noticed they had just been transported to a new location, not one said a word. Perhaps they thought this was just another of the many skills of the Mighty Greghart. Before long Agni approached from behind, looking more haggard than Greg remembered.
“You did it,” Greg told him.
“You have a keen sense of the obvious.”
“Why haven’t you done it again.”
Agni frowned. “It is not that simple. I must rest for a time before I can try again. Perhaps in the morning.”
Up until recently Greg hadn’t thought the trip could be more difficult, but the high altitude added even more bite to the air, and he found it hard enough to force himself toward the spire without having a steep incline dropped in his path.
He talked to a few soldiers along the way, hoping the company might ease his fears, but even the soldiers grew more uneasy the farther they hiked. Greg might have taken comfort knowing he was not the only one on edge, but it was hard not to dwell on the fact that, even when banded together in a group of five hundred armed men with a magician in their company, the others were afraid to get much closer to Ruuan.
Greg felt uneasy for another reason, too. Everyone viewed him as such a great hero. He wished he could tell all of Ryder’s men the truth, but he also remembered what the captain said about these men risking their lives, and about the dangers of doubting prophecies.
They entered a peculiar section of trail where the stones grunted when Greg stepped on them. Though just startling at first, the noise soon grew unbearably loud, what with five hundred soldiers following close behind. A short time later they passed through an even stranger area where the rocks all wobbled as if made of Jell-O. With each new oddity he passed, Greg missed Priscilla all the more. He knew if she were here she’d have plenty of stories about the history of these mountains, and probably even a few about how she had wrestled a harpy or single-handedly fought off an entire band of goblins deep in one of these narrow passes. Greg had an idea Priscilla’s imagination was nearly as active as his own, but make-believe or not, he would give anything to hear just one more of her stories.
They camped that evening on a plateau overlooking a row of jagged, snow-covered cliffs. But then Greg spotted the thousands of tiny dots circling the air above the mountain and knew it was not snow lining those cliff faces. These must be the dive-bombing birds of the White Cliffs of Darius Priscilla had told him about. If only she could be here to share the sight.
In the morning they set out again. They’d traveled only a short while before Greg once again saw the forest shimmer and transform into the face of a mountain so tall he could no longer see the Infinite Spire behind it. He slowed to a halt, and the five hundred men behind him were forced to do the same, though they did look rather uncomfortable about stopping without receiving a proper command.
Ryder came rushing to the front, accompanied by Bart, wanting to know why they had stopped.
“Had to,” Greg said. “The trail ends.”
Ryder laughed and patted Greg roughly on the back. “Sorry, son. I’ve been hearing songs about you for so long I forget you’re new to these parts.” He reached out and tapped the face of the mountain, and the rock pulled back with a grinding rumble, revealing a hidden staircase within a narrow crevasse rising steeply upward through the mountain.
“Whoa,” said Greg. “How’d you do that?”
“They call this Death’s Pass,” Ryder said.
Greg shuffled back and peered cautiously into the crack.
Bart chuckled and clasped Greg’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s just a name. Remember the Ballad of Greghart? ‘From the House Pendegrass, past the trolls at Death’s Pass, he would rescue a lass from a dragon.’”
“Trolls?” Greg croaked, taking a further step backward.
Bart hesitated a moment and backed up as well.
“Don’t worry, you two.” Ryder laughed. “No troll is about to show itself in there today.”
“You sure?” Greg asked.
“Of course. They’re much too afraid of the goblins.”
Greg stammered incoherently until Ryder finally let him off the hook. “It’s okay, Greghart. We won’t see any goblins today either.”
“We won’t?”
“No, goblins are a cowardly lot. They run when they’re outnumbered, and there’s never more than a few thousand gathered at one time in this whole mountain range.”
“A few thousand? But there’s only five hundred of us . . . .”
“You and I know that,” said Ryder with a wink, “but it shouldn’t be a problem. Goblins aren’t very skilled at counting.”
Though the footing through the pass was treacherous, and Greg felt disturbingly claustrophobic the entire way, Ryder was right. They didn’t see a single goblin or troll. It took all day to reach the top. When they finally stepped out onto the rim of a huge canyon, Greg got his best view of the Infinite Spire so far, or worst, depending on how he looked at it.
“We’re here,” he said with a gasp.
“Nope,” argued Ryder. “Still over a week off, I’m afraid.”
If Agni hadn’t been wearing a black robe when he stepped up from behind, Greg would not have recognized him. His skin was a dull gray, and he looked ten years older.
“Are you okay?”
The magician looked like he wanted to speak but only nodded.
“I guess you couldn’t have placed us at the top of that climb.”
Agni rolled his eyes. “I told you I must be able to picture the location in my mind. The clearing at the base of the cliff face was as well as I could do.”
He broke into a fit of coughing then, and Greg felt guilty for his question. “I’m not complaining,” he told the magician. “You’ve been a huge help.”
Agni shook his head and spoke to no one in particular. “I’m helping him to a quicker death, and he thanks me.”
The army camped for a much-needed rest and then pressed on the next morning. They marched for nearly an entire day before Agni managed to complete another spell. This time, when the scenery cleared ahead, they found themselves atop a ridge where Greg could actually see the base of the spire jutting from an ominous black lake at the center of a shallow valley. The army came to a sudden halt. Order or not, plunging to their deaths didn’t seem a sensible thing to do.
Greg couldn’t stop staring. Witch Hazel had told him the spirelings guarded the magical passage within the spire so no one would try to raid Ruuan’s lair, but seeing the spire now made him wonder why they bothered. Just the sight of it was more than enough to keep Greg away.
He forced his gaze down to the angry waters of the lake. “How are we supposed to get across tha—”
&
nbsp; Greg’s heart nearly stopped. The valley was not filled with water at all, but with men. No, not men either. Something . . . else. Short stocky creatures with huge, bulbous eyes and glowing teeth . . .
“Spirelings,” whispered Lucky, who had stepped up beside Greg.
Greg tried to speak, but his voice lodged in his throat. He kept thinking about what Witch Hazel had told him. “Canarazas. Roughly translated it means ‘razor teeth.’”
As if they weren’t already threatening enough, each spireling carried a large, double-edged axe, and Greg found it terribly upsetting that not one thought it necessary to carry a shield.
Melvin stepped up to his other side and surveyed the spireling army. “Huh. A lot more than I thought.”
“You’ve seen spirelings before?” asked Lucky.
“Sure. Sometimes Marvin brings me here, and we tease them to see how many we can get to come out of their tunnel.”
Nathan stepped up and placed a hand on Melvin’s shoulder. “I’d like to meet your brother some day.”
“How about today?” Greg barely managed to croak.
“I wish Marvin was here,” said Melvin. “I doubt even he knows there’s this many spirelings living with Ruuan.”
Captain Hawkins peered over Greg’s head into the valley below. “Right on schedule.”
Greg drew in a shaky breath. “We just shaved weeks off this trip. How can we be on schedule?”
Bart, too, peered somewhat nervously at the spirelings below. “You’re supposed to rescue the maiden on the night of the full moon. We, of course, thought it would be the next full moon, three weeks from now, but it is not the first time you have surprised us.”
Greg glanced at the sky. The sun still hovered above the horizon to the north, but the moon was already visible over the mountaintops to the east. It looked as big and full as could be. “Then it happens tonight.”
“No, tomorrow,” said Ryder, but then he looked at the moon himself and appeared less certain. “Full moon’s tomorrow night, right men?”
“Um, I think so,” came a host of replies, although no one seemed particularly certain.
Greg noticed two soldiers out of formation. They approached carrying something large between them.
“Agni!”
The soldiers laid the magician down as delicately as possible at Greg’s feet. Greg knelt at the man’s side and nearly shrieked when he saw Agni’s face.
The magician was conscious, but just barely. He peered at Greg from tired eyes sunken amidst the wrinkled, ashen face of an old man. “I did my part. Now you do yours.”
Greg swallowed hard. “I guess you’re not strong enough to send me the rest of the way?”
Agni struggled for breath. “I—I couldn’t anyway. I must be able to picture the place, and I have never been inside the spire.” His eyes closed then, and he went still.
At first Greg thought the worst. Then he observed the shallow rise and fall of the man’s chest.
“We better camp here,” Ryder said, taking one last look at the valley below. “My men need plenty of rest if they’re going to face that lot tomorrow.” He barked out a command that seemed to hang in the air forever, and as one, the men broke formation and began setting up camp.
That night there was no evening celebration. Instead, an air of impending doom settled over the camp as the soldiers sat in silence, contemplating their fates. After all, nothing in the prophecy defined which of them would live or die tomorrow, and Greg couldn’t understand how any could hope to survive when they were clearly outnumbered a thousand to one.
The moon shone nearly as bright as day, but even if it had been dark, Greg wouldn’t have stood a chance of sleeping. Rake wasn’t there to help either. The shadowcat must have felt the disquiet as much as Greg did, because it had faded into the shadows long ago and had not been back since.
Nathan crouched next to the boys’ bedrolls. Please don’t try to console me, Greg thought.
“You okay, Greghart?”
“Been better.”
“You’ll be fine. Just remember to use your head.”
Greg cringed. With his luck the soldiers were eavesdropping, and tomorrow they’d all be singing about how Greghart was going to lose his head.
“Here,” said Nathan, holding out his staff, “I want you to take this.”
“I have my own, thanks.”
“No, you should use mine. It’s . . . special.”
Greg didn’t stop to ask what Nathan meant. He grabbed the staff and hugged it tightly to his chest.
“One other thing,” said Nathan. “As with anything in life, a little preparation tonight could save you a lot of trouble in the end.”
“Okay . . .”
“The fireproofing spell Hazel gave you will not last indefinitely. You will want to finish your business in the spire and return as quickly as possible.”
“Believe me, I won’t stay up there one second longer than I need to.”
Nathan nodded. He reached out to the staff in Greg’s hand and moved it into sensen position. “Remember your center. Only from a position of peace can you achieve power. Now, sleep well, my young friend, for you will want to be well-rested when you meet the dragon.”
Before Greg could utter another word, Nathan rose and stalked off into the night. Greg’s heart pounded so hard he couldn’t think of sleeping now. What was Nathan trying to tell him? And why was he being so cryptic? Greg knew he would get no answers to these questions. He tried to push them from his mind, but they kept drifting back, demanding to be heard. Exhausted, yet wide-awake, he fell back on the one thing that had always given him solace. He pulled out his journal and pen and began to write.
It didn’t take long to bring the book up to date, and then when he still couldn’t get to sleep, Greg kept on writing, making up his own adventure as he’d done so many times back on Earth. It was a crazy thing to do, really—jotting down the end to his tale before the outcome was known—but Greg had seen the dragon. The story would never be told if he didn’t do it now. After Greg’s incineration, everyone would be so disappointed, even Bart would stop singing his ghastly ballads.
One would have thought that writing about Ruuan’s long talons and serrated teeth couldn’t have been worse therapy, that dwelling on the dragon’s enormous, leathery wings and fiery breath would have made Greg feel all the more uneasy about his fate. But the Greg Hart of his story cared little for such trivialities, and somehow that made them less horrible in real life, too.
The storybook Greg thought nothing of shouldering his way through the spirelings below and storming into the cave at the base of the spire. He found the secret passageway in seconds and marched with fearless determination into Ruuan’s lair while the dragon lay sleeping. Quickly he untied the princess and very nearly escaped without even waking the beast.
But then Ruuan’s head rocketed upward and swiveled atop the dragon’s long, sinewy neck. His jaw dropped, and out rushed a jet of scorching steam. Boldly I pulled the princess to me and raised my shield. The air roared for an unbelievably long moment. Finally the danger was past.
I laughed in the dragon’s face. Ruuan punctuated the steam with a jet of fire that nearly knocked me over backward in spite of my shield.
Again I laughed.
Ruuan leveraged himself to his feet and lunged, but my superior speed and lightening quick reflexes kept me from harm. Like a hero from some old swashbuckler movie, I scrambled behind the dragon and up its back, using its scales like a set of steps.
Ruuan struggled to reach me, to clamp me in his jaws and crush me, but I slipped up his neck and behind his ears, where the beast could not reach. As Ruuan’s head jerked about, trying to dislodge me, I held fast with my knees, raised my sword high.
With all my might I drove my blade home and felt the dragon stiffen. Like a collapsing building, the beast fell. The trip down was more fun than any amusement park ride. I leapt off at the last instant and landed nimbly at Priscilla’s side.
&nbs
p; “That was amazing!” she cried.
“Yes, well, I hope I’m not late.”
As Greg finished, his eyelids grew heavy, and he started having trouble holding his pen. The journal slipped from his lap and toppled to the ground. The next thing Greg knew, something sharp clamped down on his wrist. “Ow!”
Rake jumped away. The shadowcat had returned from hiding and apparently felt, if it was awake, Greg should be too. The air hummed with a droning rumble that sapped all of Greg’s strength and made him want more than anything to go back to sleep.
But Rake looked determined to keep him awake. Greg blinked and looked about the campsite, then jumped to his feet and stared at the valley below. “Lucky, wake up. You’ve got to see this.”
The Infinite Spire
Lucky was nearly impossible to wake. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Greg stuffed an acorn into each of Lucky’s ears. “Come on, I’m not kidding. Wake up and look around you.”
Lucky lifted his eyes and scowled. He pushed himself up on one elbow and surveyed the campsite. On one side, Nathan lay sleeping with Rake curled up next to his face. On the other, Bart and Melvin lay snoring, with Rake snuggled between them in a ball of blue-black fur.
“There’s two of them!”
“Not just two,” Greg said. “Look around.”
Lucky finally spotted the many shadowcats scattered about, one to every three or four men in the campsite. “What’s going on? Where did all these shadowcats come from?”
“Quiet. You’ll wake the others.”
“But what’s going on?” Lucky demanded.
“I don’t know,” Greg said. “But it’s not just up here. The spirelings are asleep too. There’s shadowcats all through the valley. I think it’s a sign.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think this is how we’re supposed to get past the spirelings. Now, hurry up, get your things. Who knows how long this will last?”
