by Ben Walsh
The Adventures of Stan and the Emerald of Foundation
Ben Walsh
Published by Ben Walsh
Copyright 2015 Ben Walsh
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Chapter One
CRUNCH!
“Quiet!” hissed Edgar, as the sickening noise of the snapped bone echoed through the cave.
“Sssssorry, Edgar, I just can’t see where I’m treading, please let’s light one of our torches, things would be so much easier?” complained Marvin, as he clumsily stepped over another skeleton. Stan brought up the rear of the trio, and tutted as he bumped into the back of Marvin, who had come to an untimely stop. “No, Marvin, unless you want to awaken Gordon the Gruesome and end up like one of the other explorers who’ve tried to steal his gold.”
Stan instantly regretted snapping at his best friend. Although Stan would never confess, he secretly wished Marvin wasn’t part of the quest; as much as he enjoyed his company, he just wasn’t cut out for it, and held them back.
“Will the two of you PLEASE stop talking, you are driving me insane! Come on, the great door’s just up this mound, we’re almost there”, whispered Edgar. “Stan, you know what to do, as we practised”.
Stan Pike was the youngest and also by far the smallest of the three. With a rounded, warm face and unusually high cheekbones, his face wore a constant smile, although anyone who knew him was aware that the smile was genuine. His slightly larger than normal, chocolate coloured eyes glistened mischievously and he had a full head of shaggy, uncared for black hair.
The great door, visible courtesy of a single, dingy candle, was made entirely from steel, seemingly a simple enough construction which stretched up higher than the eye could see. A golden handle protruded from the door, but fortunately Stan knew the secret danger the handle provided, for using it would sound off a bell system, alerting the fearsome dragon to the presence of intruders. The door was scratched and chinked, where the hammer or axe of previous visitors had tried, but failed, to penetrate the surface. Fortunately, the boys knew of another entrance, via a tiny gap beneath the door, a gap so minute it was barely visible to the naked eye.
As a result of this, it fell to Stan, the only one small enough, to claw his way under.
“I’m not so sure this is a good idea, there’s no way Stan will fit through there,” complained Marvin. “Maybe we should head ba-“
“Enough!” snapped Edgar. “Go on, Stan, let’s get a move on, this place is giving me the shivers, must be haunted. You need to hurry up, get in there and pull the lever to let us in, so we can grab all the gold we can. We need to get out of here as soon as possible!”
“H-h-h-h-h-h.. haunted?” Marvin’s lips trembled as he asked the question.
“Oh yes, the ghosts of the dead protect their slayer and attack anyone who dares to enter Gordon the Gruesome’s lair! Especially fat little boys like you, now stop your snivelling, Stan hurry up.”
Stan made his way over to where Marvin cowered, glaring at his brother as he did so. Stan was often powerless to prevent his older brother getting his way, but on this occasion, Edgar couldn’t argue, as it was his debt to the village bully they were here to help pay off.
Stan gazed down at his short, plump best friend with sympathy. Sweat poured down his chubby cheeks, partly from the vigorous climb, but more so, Stan suspected, from his fear.
“Marvin Miller,” Stan started, putting a comforting arm on his friend’s shoulder, “he’s only joking, ghosts aren’t real.”
“But he -“
“Marvin!!” Stan interrupted, fighting to remain patient, “Edgar is always making things up. Remember the time he bragged about kissing the milkmaid, so we went and found her and asked? She had no idea who he was!”
This memory made Marvin laugh, snivelling as he did so. Over his shoulder, Stan noticed his brother’s abnormally large head turning red, and couldn’t help but smile.
“Now, I need you to hold this rope for me. Remember, if you feel three tugs on the rope, I’m in trouble and I need you to open the door yourselves to come help me, you got that?”
“Yes, Stan, you can count on me!” Marvin replied, with enthusiasm but more than a hint of fear, as Stan retrieved the enormous length of rope from the bag the three had shared.
Stan tied one end of the rope around his ankle, before handing the other end to Marvin.
He turned to the door, and took a deep breathe, before crouching down and lying flat on his tummy. He wriggled underneath the door’s bottom and squeezed through, scraping at the floor to help pull his body forward. In no time he was fully underneath, but to his surprise had no sight of the other side. The door was far thicker than he could ever have imagined! For what felt like an eternity, Stan desperately clawed his nails into the ground and kicked his feet to push himself forward, a tiny bit at a time. Stan forced himself to think of his favourite things, to help him forget about the soul destroying, claustrophobic encounter he was in the middle of. He thought of Lake Walandik, in his home town of Oadford, and how he’d love to go swimming soon. Spring had arrived but been unusually chilly so far this year, deterring even the bravest of swimmers. The lines of trees around the edge were beginning to blossom, a pink colour, akin to that of a pig’s belly, and on a warm day, Stan could spend hours sat beneath one, away from the hectic nature of the town centre, looking out to sea, wondering what lay beyond.
It was impossible to say how long Stan spent, pulling himself along with nothing but his own thoughts for company, but after a while, a faint glowing light appeared in front of him. Excited, Stan kicked and scraped his way forwards even harder, until his arms and torso squeezed out of the gap on the other side of the door, and emerged into a large chamber, bigger than anything Stan had ever seen before!
He pulled his legs out and sprang up. Unlike the dingy cave he’d left, this side of the door was brightly lit by torches lining the wall. The most obvious difference was the huge piles and piles of gold towering in front of him, spreading into the distance and out of sight. He gasped, amazed, and reached out to touch a gold helmet, as if to confirm that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. He placed it on his head, forgetting all of his fears as he laughed and laughed at the unbelievable scene in front of him. There was more gold in this room than he previously thought existed in the whole world! Anything you could think of was there – a gold shield, gold necklaces, gold medallions, golden swords, gold knives and forks – everything! Stan got a little carried away, and soon forgot his whereabouts. Before he knew it, he was dressed from head to toe in gold armour, and was reaching for a gold shield when the weight of the gold forced Stan to stumble, and knocked a bird cage, which fell onto the ground with an enormous CLANG!
Stan held his breath, waiting to see if he had disturbed anyone, and lay hiding, terrified for over a minute. Only when several minutes passed without any sound or movement did Stan allow himself to breathe again, cautiously pulling himself up. The accident brought him back to his senses, and after taking off all of the gold, he began to search for the lever to open the door for Marvin and Edgar, without setting off the bells and waking Gordon the Gruesome.
His first thoughts were to look in the area around the door, which itself was unremarkable from the inside. To Stan’s annoyance, he was unable to locate anything which so much as r
esembled a lever, and he eventually accepted what he had hoped to avoid, and began to delve deeper into the cave.
He had somehow managed to forget about the fire breathing dragon which, according to town gossip, was in a deep sleep within the cave. In truth, no one knew, as he had not been seen for over one hundred years. Stan crept through the stacks of gold, wary to avoid disturbing any piles and cause another crashing accident.
Stan’s frustration grew as time passed and he explored the cavern without success, huffing as he did so. The dragon’s lair was far larger than he had imagined. The entry room was huge and slopped upwards to the right, out of sight of the Great Door. Towards the end of the cavern, Stan found several flights of stairs. After heading down one flight, he entered a maze of twisting, turning corridors, the paving covered almost entirely in gold. Eventually, Stan re-emerged into a second larger chamber, which was again brightly lit and filled with gold. As Stan clambered down a small slope into the chamber, he finally spotted what he had been searching for, mere steps away from him, on a ledge on the side of a wall. Excitably, Stan hurried over, eager to get out of the cave.
However, before he could reach the lever, Stan stumbled and flew headfirst into the wall, collapsing into a slump at its base. Confused, he glanced around, as he saw no gold on the path, nothing but black tiling – then he discovered the reason for the fall. As he did so, his jaw dropped open in and shock. For the thing he had not noticed and which had caused him to fall was also black, but thicker and with little spikes coming out of the sides.
Stan found himself paralysed, unable to move in sheer terror, as he rapidly began to piece together what his eyes were telling him – he had tripped over part of the tail of Gordon the Gruesome! After a few moments, Stan mustered the courage to peak around the wall from behind which the tail emerged; he instantly wished he hadn’t.
Lying in the room next to him was the biggest, most terrifying looking creature Stan had ever set eyes upon. It was jet black, with enormous nostrils and a mouth more than big enough to swallow him in one. Gordon’s teeth looked even sharper than the razors Stan’s father trimmed his beard with, while his claws were jagged and pointy, and seemed as though they could easily slice Stan’s head clean off of his shoulders!
Fortunately for Stan, Gordon didn’t seem to have detected the kick to his tail, which was as wide as a tree trunk. Stan said a silent prayer of thanks to the Gods, and edged away as quickly as he dared, in order to get back to the lever, to let Marvin and Edgar in. He kept Gordon in his sight at all times, scared he would creep up on him if he looked away for even a second.
As Stan’s heart began to stop pounding in his chest, he heard a dreadful noise he would remember for the rest of his life –
CHIME, CHIME, CHIME – DING DONG, DING DONG, DING DONG
Seemingly from no-where came a deafening noise which sounded like a combination of church bells and a cuckoo clock. Stan held his hands to his ears to try and keep the noise out, as the sharp, shrilling sound made his brain feel like it was bleeding. The pain though was the least of Stan’s problems, as he realised when he glanced back up at Gordon, just in time to see one of his big, orange eyes, slowly flicker open..
