The Familiars

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “At the moment his head was severed from his body, the ground opened up, swallowing castle and town alike. Some escaped, but many were buried alive.”

  Aldwyn stepped more cautiously, aware that far beneath his paws lay a buried city, its buildings and streets encased in mud and dirt.

  “Well, was the ogre innocent?” asked Gilbert.

  “I’m getting there,” said Skylar. “I haven’t finished the story yet. Brannfalk was one of the survivors; he managed to escape the sinking castle by jumping off the balcony of the palace’s highest tower. So did the palace wizard, who in his own desperate getaway dragged a chest containing his most precious research up the tower with him. But in his haste, it broke and spilled open, revealing severed dragon body parts: eyes, teeth, and talons. He was the one guilty of the dragon slayings, not the ogre whom he had framed.

  “The palace wizard had experimented on the dragons in the hope of engineering an undefeatable dragon, obedient only to him, that would become his familiar. But his forbidden necromancy had been unsuccessful. In an attempt to hide his dark experiments, he poured the contents of his failed spells down the dungeon well. Little could he know that what he was unable to achieve over those few terrible nights, nature with its infinite patience would accomplish over the span of a hundred years. For there, in that well, the stew of all seven of the King’s dragons eventually grew into the perfect dragon: the creature that we know today as the Hydra of Mukrete.”

  “Wait a second,” said Gilbert, “you mean—?”

  “That’s right,” replied Skylar. “It’s the very dragon that has been guarding the Sunken Palace ever since.”

  Aldwyn’s mind was racing. He remembered his alley days, when he was often outsized and out-matched. He had always found a way to turn the odds in his favor, whether it was by his lightning-quick reflexes, clever thinking, or just sheer guts. But would those skills be enough when fighting a seven-headed monster?

  “So, Skylar,” said Aldwyn, “does this hydra have any weak spots? Something that might slow it down?”

  “I know a little about the seven heads,” she replied. “You see, Brannfalk had collected one dragon from each of the seven northern species. There’s a fire breather, fairly typical. A shrieker, whose wail has been known to cause madness if you’re exposed to it for too long. A tunneler, whose spiked horns can bore through any mountain. You remember the acid spitter; we already know what it is capable of. And then there are the three really dangerous heads.”

  Aldwyn swallowed. The ones Skylar had already told them about seemed bad enough.

  “The first of those is the hive dragon,” continued Skylar. She seemed to take pleasure in describing their foe in detail. “Poisonous hornets live in its nostrils. The second is the black tooth, whose bite causes instant death. So you should definitely avoid that one. And the final head is the python strangler, whose forked tongue can squeeze the life out of a full-sized gundabeast.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Aldwyn interrupted her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. What was it again?”

  “Any weak spots?” he reminded her.

  “None that I know of.”

  Aldwyn’s uneasiness grew.

  “Don’t worry,” said Skylar. “I’ll be casting illusions to help.”

  “What about me?” asked Gilbert. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re going to be bait,” she said.

  Shortly afterward, the mist began to lift, and Aldwyn spotted a tower of stone jutting out of the ground like a giant mushroom, tilting ever so slightly.

  “This must be the high tower of the Old Palace, the one Brannfalk escaped from,” said Skylar. It was the only thing from all of Mukrete that had remained visible.

  Through an arched window, half above ground and half below, Aldwyn could see a spiral staircase leading downward.

  “Guys, over here,” said Aldwyn. “It looks like a way in.”

  Aldwyn was the first to climb through, jumping down to a marble step beneath the window. Skylar peered through the opening, assessing the distance of the drop.

  “Gilbert, I could do with a little help,” she said.

  Gilbert supported her with two webbed hands, lowering her down to the ground, and Aldwyn was there to ease the landing. Gilbert followed, hopping down beside them.

  Aldwyn took one last look through the window and could see a sliver of sky, the clouds now turning orange-pink, a sure sign that sunset was approaching. Before he turned back for the stairs, he could have sworn he saw a small flock of spyballs fly past outside.

  “Come on,” said Skylar. “We have a long way down. It says in the scrolls that the Old Palace’s high tower reached twenty stories into the sky. And who knows how deep down the dungeon lies.”

  They began their twisting descent, making winding circles around the central stone pillar of the staircase. The granite walls were remarkably well preserved; the superior architecture and construction had prevented even the slightest cracks in their surface. The windows had mud and earth pressed against them, revealing a cross section of worm trails and mole tunnels. As the familiars moved lower, the air became stale and still. No breeze had passed through this spire for two hundred years. Their descent into the buried underground fortress was lit by steady flames coming from wall-mounted candleless holders. Skylar identified this wax-and wick-free magical device as Protho’s Lights, named after the great magical inventor, Orachnis Protho.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said Gilbert suddenly.

  Aldwyn and Skylar turned back to him. The tree frog had stopped beneath an open window, standing beside a pile of dirt on the floor.

  “That’s great, Gilbert, but we’ve seen dirt before,” said Aldwyn.

  “No, look,” said the tree frog as he pulled a gold-capped tube from the floor. “It’s one of Marianne’s pocket scrolls. It must have slipped out of her sleeping shirt.”

  “They’re really here!” whispered Aldwyn to himself. The hope that they weren’t too late washed over him.

  Just then, he felt some pebbles fall on his shoulder. He glanced up at the window and saw a horde of giant earth mites scurry in from the dried dirt outside. They were the size of grapes, with hard shells and six pointy legs. The ground-dwelling insects crawled down the side of the wall, moving quickly toward them. “What are they?” asked Aldwyn, with alarm in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” replied Skylar.

  Aldwyn and Gilbert both gave her a look of surprise.

  “What? I don’t know everything,” she said, using her good wing to try to knock a couple of the bugs that had fallen onto her from her feathers.

  “First vampire leeches, now this,” said an exasperated Gilbert. “I’m really done for this time!”

  Aldwyn tried to shake off the handful of mites that had landed on his fur.

  “Aldwyn, Gilbert, relax,” said Skylar. “They’re not biting.”

  They both stopped their flailing.

  “They’re not?” asked Gilbert.

  “They’re not,” said Aldwyn.

  “I think they’re just looking for a warm place to nestle,” she added.

  Skylar reached into her satchel with her beak and removed some sage, juniper, and nightshade. She tossed the components into the air and chanted.

  “Send a flame from whence you came!”

  A small female fire spirit materialized, and the mites immediately swarmed in the direction of the fairy’s glowing form.

  Aldwyn used his claw to pull one last hanger-on from the furry pit of his hind leg and dropped it on the ground. Skylar and Gilbert, now free and clear as well, were moving farther down the steps, leaving the heat-seeking crawlers behind.

  They headed deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Sunken Palace. Soon they could hear haunting music. Around a bend at the end of the staircase, they found what appeared to be a banquet room. Large sofas and chairs surrounded an enchanted harp playing a melancholy tune, as if a musical recital of some sort had
taken place here long ago and never ended. One of the strings was out of tune, and every time it was plucked, a flat note pierced the air. Crystal glasses with traces of wine and plates covered with quail bones were still left on the tables, abandoned in a rush when the ogre’s curse had plunged the castle into the ground. Save some cobwebs and dust, Aldwyn thought, this is what the place must have looked like two centuries ago.

  He looked at the paintings on the walls. One seemed to be a portrait of King Brannfalk. His resemblance to Queen Loranella was unmistakable. Aldwyn’s eyes then returned to the floor.

  “Look, footprints.”

  Tracks in the dust led to a wooden door. The trio followed them onto the second floor landing overlooking the great hall. Aldwyn stood in awe. Never before had he been inside a room so enormous. There were marble staircases on either side of the landing. Rows of columns supported the high domed ceiling, from which hung metal chandeliers holding Protho’s Lights. The floor displayed a large tile mosaic of King Brannfalk’s face. Skylar had been right when she said he was prideful: this was vanity unchecked!

  Two large archways led to neighboring rooms. Aldwyn could see that one was the throne room; the other he couldn’t see into from where he was standing. Unlike the banquet room they had passed through, the great hall appeared to have been ravaged by battle. There were singe marks on the wall where a fire had burned tapestries to ash, and chunks of stone had been splintered as if by mighty blasts of energy. Heavy wooden furniture had been crushed and a table overturned. Dented suits of armor lined the wall. One of the stairway’s marble banisters looked as if a large part of it had been melted away.

  An ominous silence hovered over the place, broken only by the distant melody of the out-of-tune harp. As Aldwyn took his first steps down the stairs, he felt the ground move beneath his feet. He thought that the earth had given way and the castle was sinking even deeper. Either that, or—these were the footsteps of the seven-headed hydra.

  17

  THE HYDRA OF MUKRETE

  Aldwyn didn’t have to wait long to get his answer: in the throne room’s archway, a single dragon head appeared. Then another. Then a third and a fourth. Each a different size and color. The last three heads came all together, along with the beast’s giant body, smooth and green with jagged spikes on its tail. The Hydra of Mukrete stood thirty feet tall and was nearly as long.

  Aldwyn, Gilbert, and Skylar froze in their tracks. All they’d been told had not prepared them for the fearsome monster now blocking their path.

  “Eeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

  The high-pitched, eardrum-shattering wail came from the head of the shrieker. It had a long, beige-speckled neck and an impossibly large mouth. Its cry alerted the other wandering heads to what it had just discovered. In a flash, fourteen malevolent dragon eyes were gazing at the familiars, who were trying to cover their ears, attempting to block the shrieker’s wail any way they could.

  “Gilbert, the sleeping powder!” shouted Aldwyn over the deafening scream.

  “What?” Aldwyn thought he heard Gilbert respond, but he wasn’t quite sure.

  “THE SLEEPING POWDER!” Aldwyn yelled, trying to be heard over the shrieker dragon.

  Skylar was shouting, too, gesturing frantically to Gilbert, who seemed both confused and terrified. The hydra was stomping closer—its thick, clawed feet dragging its heavy body across the floor at a worrying speed.

  Aldwyn tried pantomime instead, cupping his paws together and curling up to them as if pretending to sleep. He then shook his paw as if pouring something from a vial. Gilbert finally got the message and removed the glass container with its precious powder from Jack’s pouch. Aldwyn took it in his teeth. The hydra had moved down the alley of columns right up to the staircase on which the familiars were standing, but the shrieker took a breath, giving them a quick chance to talk.

  “Gilbert and I will distract it from the ground,” said Skylar to Aldwyn. “Good luck.”

  At this moment, a blast of fire hit the stone steps, landing right between Aldwyn and his two fellow familiars. He looked up to see that the blast had come from the red-eyed fire breather. Its mouth was dripping steaming saliva. Skylar and Gilbert hurried down the staircase, drawing the fire breather’s attention away from Aldwyn. A trail of orange flames was nipping at their heels. Aldwyn sprinted upward, hoping to climb high enough to jump on top of the beast. As he ran, the smallest of the seven heads opened its mouth and flipped up its tongue. A stream of yellow liquid shot toward Aldwyn. When the discharge made contact with the marble, it began to eat away at it instantly. This was the acid spitter head. Aldwyn had to leap from step to step as its venom burned simmering holes in his path.

  Aldwyn caught a glimpse through the banister as Skylar and Gilbert reached the floor and sprinted toward the dented suits of armor standing against the wall. The head of the black tooth, with hollowed-out eyes and rows of rotting teeth, darted toward them. It might have swallowed both familiars whole had it not been for the shrieker’s head, which was pulling the hydra in the other direction, straight for Aldwyn.

  As the shrieker wailed again, Aldwyn jumped atop the narrow stone banister. The head came up alongside him, the inhuman noise getting louder the closer it got. But instead of running away, Aldwyn leaped onto its snout. He took one of his claws and stuck it into the vial’s cork stopper, then tugged it out with a pop. The enraged head of the shrieker barely had time to react as Aldwyn pounced up to its eye and tipped a dash of the Alchemist’s dark yellow sleeping powder into the socket.

  Instantaneously, the shrieker’s pupil dilated and the entire eye became glassy. It went silent—the first of the seven heads had fallen fast asleep. As the shrieker’s neck began to go limp, Aldwyn dashed across it toward the hydra’s main body, recorking the vial as he ran.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” he said to himself, a little surprised but also gaining confidence.

  The feeling didn’t last long, though. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a pair of twisted horns rushing toward him—the horns of the tunneler dragon. He dodged them at the very last second, only getting grazed by their spiked tips. Before the tunneler could take a second stab at him, Aldwyn vaulted to the neighboring neck of the acid spitter.

  As the horns charged at him again, Aldwyn stood his ground, leaving himself a clear target of the tunneler’s attack. He waited as the spiked tips sliced through the air, approaching him. Then, at the last moment, he vaulted upward, wrapping his paws around the nearest chandelier. The tunneler couldn’t stop the momentum of his blow, and its horns pierced the underside of the acid spitter’s long neck, puncturing its salivary gland and sending a stream of acid gushing from the hole. The head of the acid spitter slammed to the ground, a flood of acid spreading across the floor.

  Two down, thought Aldwyn as he pulled himself up to the relative safety of the hanging chandelier. From here, he could see that Skylar and Gilbert were hiding behind the suits of armor. Unfortunately, the fire breather was rapidly approaching them, shooting flames from its mouth. Aldwyn knew that his friends would be cooked if he didn’t do something. He used his weight to swing the chandelier toward the head of the fire breather, whose breath had nearly melted through the plated mail armor protecting Skylar and Gilbert. Aldwyn uncorked the vial of sleeping powder and sprinkled a dusting into the creature’s red, beady eye. The fire breather wheezed out one last puff of smoke before its neck collapsed into a snoring heap on the ground.

  Gilbert and Skylar were no longer in danger of being singed, but now the wide-nosed head of the hive dragon was coming toward them. It let out a powerful snort, unleashing a swarm of black and yellow hornets. The stinging insects buzzed around the room, dipping and diving toward Gilbert and Skylar, who were forced to flee from behind the melted armor.

  “Keep moving,” yelled Skylar to Gilbert. “If you stop they’ll cluster around you. And, believe me, you don’t want to be stung by even one. Their toxins can kill a grown man instantly.”

  Frog and bi
rd hopped along the giant mosaic. The acid from the spitter’s neck was spreading, dissolving the floor and half of King Brannfalk’s tiled face. From his perch atop the chandelier, Aldwyn could see through the rapidly growing hole in the floor. Beneath the great hall was the palace vault and all its treasures: gold coins piled high, crystal scepters, bronze bathtubs filled with rubies, and jewel-encrusted crowns.

  Just then, from behind Aldwyn, the head of the black tooth lashed out with a vicious bite. It snapped the chain of the chandelier, sending Aldwyn and the Protho’s Lights crashing to the floor below. Skylar and Gilbert were running for their lives from the horde of nostril wasps, but the fallen chandelier, with a dazed Aldwyn sitting on it, now blocked their path of escape. Aldwyn watched as one of the deadly insects landed on Gilbert’s shoulder and inserted its stinger into the tree frog’s slimy skin.

  “Gilbert, NO!” exclaimed Skylar, who saw what was happening as well. She reached for a candlestick holder from the chandelier with her talon and waved one of Protho’s Lights in the air, momentarily warding off the killer insects.

  Gilbert looked down at the black hornet prong embedded in his arm. “Tell Marianne I tried my best,” he said.

  “Just hang in there,” said Aldwyn, trying to comfort Gilbert.

  Skylar continued to hold back the hornets with the glowing blue torch. She turned and noticed that Gilbert looked no worse than before.

  “Gilbert, aren’t you in excruciating pain?” she asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not.”

  “You should be dead by now,” she added.

  Gilbert perked up considerably at this good piece of news.

  “That’s strange. Now that you mention it, I don’t feel anything.”

  “You must be immune to their poison,” said Skylar.

  “I guess that makes sense,” he replied. “Mosquitoes, stinging beetles, poisonous bees: none of them can hurt frogs. In fact, we like to think of them less as enemies and more as appetizers.” A grin crossed his face. “Please allow me.”