Seconds ticked away.
“Never mind,” he said.
“Eh.” Ana shrugged. “It was worth a try. Let’s go.”
Ana didn’t look at Harris like he was completely crazy, which was good because that was how he felt.
“You’re an odd duck, Magician,” Jake said, patting him on the back. “But I still like ya.”
They journeyed on.
As they got closer to the castle they noticed that there was actually a much smaller castle—pretty much a normal castle size—standing on the lawn in front of the enormous, mountainous castle. The smaller castle looked cheap, like some kind of faux-castle, compared to the monstrosity of stone behind it.
“That is one weird-looking castle,” Ana said as they approached.
By the time they were upon it, the smaller castle revealed itself to be made of wood. The timber used in its construction must have been much bigger than any found on Earth.
Above the castle doors was a sign. Its white background made its red letters stand out boldly. Next to the letters was a painting of a fierce red dragon.
The red letters read:
Professor Wigglebottom
“God, this just keeps getting weirder,” Ana said, existential woes creeping into her voice again.
“Do you think this castle is where the dragon who has Silvia lives?” Jake said as the group made their way through the open doors at the front.
“Maybe?”
The inside of the castle was a wide, open space. In the back right corner was a big pile of hay. There were two giant bowls near the door. One was half-full of water, the other was stained with dried blood. A giant bone, like the thigh of a brontosaurus, lay in the middle of the spacious room.
“What . . . the . . .” Harris couldn’t finish his thought. This was far too strange to be true. The things his eyes were taking in, flipping upside down, and sending to his brain to be processed were unbelievable.
What he thought he saw was evidence that Zoth-Avarex lived in a glorified doghouse.
With the Catching Ends the Pleasure of the Chase
Zoth-Avarex dove toward the fleeing girl. He was upset that she’d disliked living with him enough to attempt an escape, but he was also invigorated by the thrill of the chase.
Silvia and the little flying creature rode the magic carpet over the top of a city street, heading south. The dragon pursued as the carpet took a right around an apartment building.
The carpet was quick and agile, zipping in and out of city streets with ease. The dragon would have been able to overtake it more easily in the open, but his huge frame made zigging and zagging in relatively tight quarters difficult.
His wing clipped a lighted sign, sending sparks flying and debris crashing to the sidewalk below. His other wing smashed into the limb of a tree, nearly causing him to lose control.
Silvia glanced behind before pulling on a front edge of the carpet to steer it to the left, whipping under the suspended electrified wires that powered the city buses.
Zoth-Avarex followed above the wires, looking down on his prey like a hawk, waiting for the right moment to dive.
Silvia turned the carpet toward a busy market and entered into an open-air structure.
The dragon rolled his eyes as he landed to a host of screams just outside the market’s iconic sign. He complained, “As every Monday Night Football camera crew doing a Seahawks game knows, a trip into Pike’s Place Market is obligatory.”
He watched Silvia fly over the heads of the scattering market shoppers.
“Don’t catch a fish in the face,” he called.
Silvia hit a dead end and the carpet came to an abrupt stop.
“All right, all right. Now come on out of there or I’ll have to roast this entire market.”
Zoth-Avarex saw Silvia contemplating as her eyes darted around. With a violent tug, the girl turned the carpet toward a set of stairs heading down deeper into the market. At the bottom of the stairs she flew over a railing and away from the building, out over Puget Sound.
The dragon leaped directly up and flew over the top of the market, hitting the sign on the roof with his tail as he passed.
Silvia banked left and the dragon pursued.
This was more like it. Out in the open, this chase would be over in no time. But the carpet was a bit faster than the dragon had estimated. Silvia aimed it at the sports stadiums just ahead. It looked like the baseball stadium was packed with people.
Silvia flew up over the side of the stadium and plunged down over the gasping crowd. She circled the stadium and exited from where she had come in.
“Okay, enough is enough,” Zoth-Avarex grumbled to himself as they zoomed toward the water.
He raised a claw, lifted it up, and brought it back down in a dramatic fashion.
Suddenly under the spell of Zoth-Avarex, the carpet lost altitude and speed until it came to rest on the wide sidewalk in front of the giant Ferris wheel on the waterfront.
The dragon folded his wings between buildings and settled down on the street nearby.
“I knew I chose you for a reason!” the dragon said to Silvia. “You’ve got spirit! I feel alive for the first time in centuries!”
Silvia tried to run, but the dragon’s claw blocked her way. She turned to run the other way and the other claw scooped her up.
“Sorry, Princess. You’re going back with me.”
The dragon heard the screeching of tires and flipped around, expecting police or military vehicles. Instead, there were two news vans. Crews jumped out and set up their cameras.
Zoth’s tail began to wag. He made a conscious effort to stop it.
“Hello, news media of Earth. How are you doing?”
“What are you doing here?” a reporter shouted to him.
“Oh, nothing much. The princess and I were just messing around a little.”
“Do you have anything you’d like to tell us?”
The dragon’s scaly eyebrows raised. He felt pretty good at the moment, high from the chase, and a touch on the benevolent side.
“Well, I guess I could help you Earthlings out a little bit.”
“How?”
“I’ve got some ideas about what’s wrong with your city, your country, and even your planet.”
The reporter waited with microphone aloft. Several others rushed to her side with their own mics.
“Okay, well, don’t use me as an example, I’m a dragon. You know, do as I say, not as I do, like every one of your parents wanted. I have my own problems, but I am able to see your problems from the outside looking in. You guys are pretty fucked, but I wouldn’t say all hope is lost.”
Zoth-Avarex straightened up and turned his head to the side, popping his neck. Silvia wasn’t struggling to break free of his grip; she must have known resistance was futile.
“Let’s start right here,” he said. “You’ve got a homelessness and drug problem here in your city, and the policies you’ve enacted, although meant to be compassionate, have made things worse and worse.” He paused. “But then some of you humans swing way over to the other side of the spectrum in this country, and you’ve got people with zero compassion for those trying to make a better life for their families.
“Both of your political parties are so full of shit. Both of them may have a few good ideas in general, but they’re mostly just out for themselves. You idiots have completely polarized yourselves toward the stupid fringes of the political spectrum and wonder why things are going to shit. The pendulum of stupidity never stops. Its gains momentum with each swing until it inevitably breaks itself.
“For one thing, you can’t sit around all day listening to some radio or television program bitch and complain about how horrible the other side is and tell you how to think.
“The dragons, so to speak, in your country are getting
richer and richer while you all squabble amongst yourselves over whatever issues they’ve chosen for you to squabble over.”
The dragon’s hips began to sway. As much as he would have denied it, he was loving the attention. He loved talking down to these peasants with their peasant problems. It was fun. Their major world problems seemed so simple in his mind.
“This thing you have, where some of you who are a certain shade think you’re better than others who are a different shade is ridiculous. No matter what color your skin is, you’re all equally pathetic.”
“Are you done yet?” Silvia said from his claw.
“Almost, I’m just getting to the good part.” He looked back to the cameras with a smile. “But anyone can see the problems in someone else’s system, it’s finding the solutions that you’ll want to listen to the hardest. For I am about to blow your feeble little minds.”
The Professor Is In
“Could that possibly be his real name above the door?” Ana said.
“There’s only one way to found out, I suppose.” Harris put the binder clip down in the center of the castle floor. He took out his wand and redrew his runes in the air, maintaining his high attention to detail.
With a gulp, Harris looked to the others, expecting them to say something.
Apparently no one had anything to say.
“All right, then.” Harris cleared his throat. “Professor Wigglebottom, I call you to this world.”
It felt ridiculous to say.
The Amazing Disappearing Dragon
“You people are in luck,” the dragon continued. “You’ve got a polymath genius of a dragon right here in your country that has figured this all out for you. I have easy-to-implement, common-sense answers to the really big problems that your city, your country, even your world, is facing. You’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, how did we not think of that?’ Poverty, hunger, climate change, inequality, war; I can fix all of these things if you’ll listen.
“You simply need—”
The dragon vanished.
Silvia fell several feet and landed on the top of a news van. She stood and dusted herself off, a wide smile across her face.
Oops
As soon as Harris spoke the words, a loud crack reverberated through the open area inside the wooden castle.
The great red dragon blinked into existence right in front of them.
“What the hell, guys?” the dragon roared. “Not cool! I had a good thing going over there on Earth, you fuckin’ buzz-kills!”
Professor Wigglebottom scanned the castle, focusing on Steve’s Binder Clip on the floor. “Shit,” he said, shaking his massive head. “All right, you got me.”
“Is Silvia okay?” Ana said.
“She should be fine. Although you probably just made her fall out of my hand from about six feet up.”
“You didn’t hurt her?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
“Okay, good.” Ana seemed satisfied with the answer.
After an awkward silence, Harris gave voice to something that gnawed at him.
“I have a question for you,” he said, raising his hand half way.
“Go ahead,” the dragon said impatiently.
“How. . . I mean, how in the hell is your name Professor Wigglebottom?”
The dragon looked down to the ground. Its immense shoulders and wings drooped.
“I’m the. . . pet of a giant demigod king.” He spit out the word pet as if it were spoiled milk. “I’m damn-near all-powerful and I’ve been reduced to being domesticated and living in a fake-ass dog house of a castle with—and this is the real kicker—no fucking gold!”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I mean, I break out every now and then. Sometimes I’m able to sneak away, and sometimes I convince someone from another realm to conjure me away. But he always gets me back eventually.”
“If you’re so powerful, how is that possible?”
“There’s always a bigger fish.” The dragon shook his head, possibly due to the hopelessness of his life on Titan, or possibly because he had just quoted The Phantom Menace. Harris couldn’t tell for sure which one.
“Now why don’t you guys get out of here and let me go? I mean, I didn’t do anything to you lot, specifically.”
“Silvia is my fiancée,” Jake said.
“Well, it wasn’t like that. We’re not competing suitors or anything, lucky for you. It wasn’t personal.”
“She is my sister!” Ana said with defiance.
“Okay, okay, let’s not play the blame game, here.” The dragon eyed the sword strapped to Jake’s back. “We don’t need to go on and on about who kidnapped who or who summoned and tried to enslave who. I can see that you’re both reasonable, empathetic people. It’s obvious that you’re the type of virtuous heroes with forgiving hearts. The valiant, enviable types of people who harbor no grudges. Yes, I sense you’re feeling an unexpected compassion and a vague sense of reverence toward me.”
Harris cleared his throat.
“Let me guess, you’re Silvia’s second cousin?”
“No, I’m here for them.” Harris pointed to Ana and Jake. “These are easily the two bravest, most loyal people you will ever meet. They’re awesome, and . . .” The grandiose speech Harris had conjured in his mind wasn’t coming out as smoothly as he hoped. “. . . brave, and beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Jake said.
“One of them is beautiful, anyway. And she’s funny and smart and kind. . . . Did I mention brave?”
“Look,” the dragon said. “This is riveting stuff, but can we get back to me, now?”
Flustered, Harris conceded the floor.
“Now that I’m back here, I can’t do any more harm to anyone. It’s not like any of you would be stupid enough to summon me without setting that super-powerful magical artifact down inside a binding rune.” The dragon turned dramatically to look at Steve’s Binder Clip.
Shocks of adrenaline and shame coursed through Harris’s body.
“You wonderful, wonderful idiots.” The dragon grinned, then laughed a resonant, cackling laugh. “Without a rune to direct its power, that thing ain’t much more than a shitty paperweight. It’s like bringing a cotton swab to a gun fight.”
“I’ve got more than a cotton swab,” Jake said, stepping boldly forward. “I’ve got the Venerable Sword!”
He reached back over his shoulder and grasped the hilt of the sword. He pulled it up, releasing the base of the blade from the scabbard strapped to his back.
But that was as far as he got. His arm wasn’t long enough to take the sword fully out from behind him. He bent forward, trying to change the angle, but nothing helped. The sword was stuck in its scabbard. Jake’s face turned a deep red.
“Impressive,” the dragon said, clapping his claws in mock appreciation. “This has been great, you guys, but I’m gonna have to roast you and find a way back to my gold pile, now.”
El Erradicador
The spikes on the back of the dragon’s neck stood up as he took in a deep breath. A barrage of flame spewed forth from his mouth.
Jake took off to his right, running faster than Harris would have guessed he could run. The dragon turned his head and followed Jake with the rush of fire, but Jake was able to keep just ahead.
The flames engulfed the hay in the corner of the room.
“Shit,” the dragon said, rushing over and trying to stomp out the fire.
Jake, Ana, Xop, and Harris used this opportunity to flee the castle.
They sprinted for the portal. Harris wished like hell they had gone back and done the conjuring next to the portal, but he never thought he would have missed the critical step of putting the goddamned binder clip in a goddamned binding rune. He glanced over his shoulder to see smoke pouring out of the castle door. Jake was unstrapping the sword from hi
s back. Harris put his head down and kept running, wondering if he could make it all the way back to the portal before keeling over.
They were actually making pretty good progress. Harris could see the portal about a hundred Earth yards ahead. If he could power through, he could make it that far. He’d probably puke in the locker room, but he could live with that humiliation if it meant he’d live.
A roar issued from behind them. Another glance told Harris that the dragon had left the castle, which was now on fire. Jake, who had successfully removed the scabbard from his person, turned around and drew the Venerable Sword.
Ana stopped as well and drew her wand.
Harris stopped, panting, and ran back to join his friends, Xop flying behind him. He drew a—likely useless—protective rune with a handle in the air. When it took semi-solid form he grabbed it and held it like Captain America’s shield.
Xop growled in the cutest way possible.
This was it. They were going to face the mighty dragon on his home turf. The dragon who had withstood missile attacks, who was damn-near all-powerful. They were going to face it with a sword, a wand, a rune shield, and cute teeth.
The dragon landed in front of them, blocking out the sun. He towered over the four of them.
Harris raised his shield and gulped.
There could be worse ways to die, he tried to convince himself. Facing a fire-breathing dragon with friends was a better way to go than most, he guessed.
The spikes on the dragon’s neck stood up. It took in a lung-filling breath.
The dragon was lifted, bodily, straight up into the air.
Harris, who had been cringing and hiding behind his shield, now looked up at the most surreal thing he’d seen yet. A sky-scraping giant held the dragon by the scruff of the neck.
“You burned down your own castle?” the giant’s thunderous voice scolded.
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex: The Self-Proclaimed Greatest Dragon in the Multiverse Page 17
