Lair of the Beast

by Adam Jay Epstein

  Wily pushed open the door and spied, across the courtyard, his cloaked father moving swiftly for the exit of the prisonaut—which was still wide open.

  “Stop him!” Wily screamed.

  The dozen knights patrolling the high walls looked down at Wily and then to the cloaked figure who was now hustling for the open gate. They all suddenly realized their mistake.

  “Close it now!” one of the knights yelled.

  Kestrel picked up speed, the hood fluttering off his head. He was steps away. If he got to Wily’s horse—

  With a mighty crash the gate came smashing down. Kestrel pulled to a halt, now trapped in the prisonaut. Soldiers quickly swarmed around him, pointing their crossbows at his chest.

  “You can’t blame me for trying,” Kestrel said as the guards pulled the cloak from his shoulders.

  “But you failed,” Wily responded.

  “I never lose,” Kestrel retorted. “I just win later.”

  Wily narrowed his eyes, then asked his father a question still in need of answering. “What was so special about that statue?”

  “It’s made of neccanite,” Kestrel said. “The strongest natural mineral. Only a diamond-tipped chisel could make the slightest dent in it. My engineers carved it from one of the few blocks of it ever found.”

  “But if Stalag found more,” Wily concluded aloud, “he could build golems. Golems that no sword or ax could break.”

  “You are more clever than I give you credit for,” Kestrel said. “But then again, you are my son. We have lots in common.”

  The knights began pulling Kestrel away, his hands now bound behind his back.

  “Wait,” Wily called to the knights. “He has my screwdriver.”

  The knights stopped Kestrel and patted him down, frisking him carefully for the stolen item. After a prolonged search, the soldiers stepped back empty-handed.

  “There’s nothing on him,” one knight said.

  “I must have dropped it,” Kestrel said innocently.

  Wily looked into his father’s eyes.

  “I told you,” Kestrel said in a whisper, “I don’t lose. I just win later.”

  Had this been what his father had intended from the moment Wily sat down opposite him? Not to escape now, but to steal Wily’s screwdriver and hide it for some later purpose? Had Kestrel’s run for the gate merely been a distraction from his true plan?

  “We’ll find the screwdriver,” the knight said as he tugged Kestrel away.

  Wily had a terrible feeling that the knights wouldn’t find it until it was too late.

  He’d discovered the secret of the statue but he wondered at what cost. Even after Kestrel was pulled out of view, Wily felt like he could still see his father’s haunting smile.

  6

  THE LEGEND OF PALOJAX

  By the time Wily returned to the royal palace, the dining room was nearly empty. Only his closest companions were still gathered around the table impatiently awaiting his arrival. They all turned to him as he entered.

  “Stalag is going to use the enchanted compass and the statue from Stilt Village to sniff out neccanite,” Wily announced as he approached the table. “If he finds enough of the black stone, he will be able to mold it into an army of unstoppable golems.”

  “Just like the ones that marched across Panthasos when my grandparents were children,” Lumina said before slumping back in her chair, defeated. “This is worse than I feared. Every elf, gwarf, and Knight of the Golden Sun standing together couldn’t topple a dozen regular stone golems. Let alone ones made of neccanite.”

  “We could build our own army of golems,” Roveeka said.

  “It is a skill that only the cavern mages have,” Pryvyd countered, “and every one of them will stand against us. They have been studying in their dungeons and catacombs, waiting for the moment to return to the surface and reclaim the Above. It’s clear Stalag has declared that the time is now.”

  “There has to be a way to stop neccanite golems,” Wily said. “If there were an army of them before, they must have been defeated somehow.”

  “They weren’t stopped by man,” Lumina said. “They were stopped by a beast. Not any ordinary beast: Palojax, the lair beast. A three-headed creature with a tail that can shatter mountains.”

  “A lair beast?” Odette said. “I thought that was a myth used to scare young elves into doing their chores.”

  “It is no myth,” Lumina said. “My own mother saw the mighty Palojax when she was a child. She said that it made a full-size lobster dragon look as tiny as a dust mouse.”

  “Myth or no myth,” Odette said, “all the lair beasts are gone now.”

  “Not gone,” Lumina said. “Just hiding.”

  “Hiding?” Odette said with a laugh. “Where could a three-headed beast as tall as a great pine hide? There’s no forest or hillside that they could call their home.”

  “Palojax is said to have found a peaceful haven that few can reach,” Lumina said. “A secret world beneath the deepest cave, a place known as the Below.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Odette said.

  “I have,” Roveeka said with a gleam of excitement. “The Below is a place hobgoblets tell one another about. A place where the sun shines up. A place where wishes are granted.”

  “Yes, I remember,” Wily said. “The elder hobgoblets would tell us to whisper our wishes to a piece of pyrite and throw it into the bottomless hole. They said the wish would travel all the way down into the Below. And if a hobgoblet was lucky, their wish would be granted by the upside-down star.”

  “A wish on an upside-down star?” Odette asked. “That sounds like the most ridiculous myth of all.”

  “I made a wish once,” Wily said, gesturing to everything around him. “And it came true.”

  “The Below is real,” Lumina said. “And so is Palojax.”

  “That’s our answer, then,” Pryvyd said. “If the lair beast is still there, we need to lure him back to the surface to save Panthasos.”

  Everyone around the dining table began to murmur.

  “Unfortunately, a lair beast is not like a mercenary for hire or a noble knight,” Lumina countered. “Palojax is still a beast, no matter how much good it’s done in the past. It will not come to our aid willingly.”

  “Then why did it stop the golems last time?” Wily asked.

  “Beast quellers led it into battle,” Lumina answered. “The most trained and gifted members of the Roamabout tribe were able to control it long enough to rid the world of the neccanite golems.”

  “You’re a beast queller, right?” Roveeka said, hopefully. “You were a member of the Roamabout tribe. That’s what Epenya Veldt, the squatling we met in the Twighast Forest, told us when we were searching for you.”

  “As talented as I am,” Lumina said, “I was never trained in the ancient art of controlling lair beasts. Every creature must be calmed in their own manner. It’s an incredibly difficult skill that the elders never thought would need to be taught again.”

  “There must be somebody who knows how,” Wily said, filled more with hope than certainty.

  “Yes,” Lumina said. “There are two. The nearly blind Olgara and her most talented student, a young girl named Valor Pelage. The knowledge is passed down from generation to generation. When I left to become the Scarf, Olgara was teaching it to Valor just as my great-grandmother had taught it to her.”

  “That’s great. I’m sure both of them will help us,” Roveeka said.

  “All we need is one,” Lumina said. “But it may not be as easy as that. When I was living with the Roamabouts, they didn’t like outsiders. They didn’t trust them.”

  “Well, they haven’t met me,” Roveeka said with a crooked smile. “I’m very likable.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Odette turned to Lumina. “You’re suggesting that we seek out a blind sage and her student, hoping that they know the secret to a nearly impossible ancient art. Then convince them to join us on a deadly mission. And i
f that goes well, we still need to find the entrance to the Below, a mythical place with an upside-down star, and then come face-to-face with a beast so fierce that neccanite golems would back away in fear?”

  “That about sums it up,” Lumina said, clearly realizing how daunting it sounded.

  A stillness fell over the hall, a quiet so intense that it made Wily wonder if his ears had suddenly stopped working.

  “It sounds like a wonderful plan,” Roveeka said.

  “I think it’s crazy,” Odette said.

  “What do you think, Wily?” Pryvyd asked. “You’re the future king.”

  Suddenly, every head in the room turned toward Wily.

  Why do I have to make this decision? Wily thought to himself. I’m just a trapsmith. I shouldn’t be in charge. I never asked for all this responsibility.

  He could feel his throat closing under the pressure. Is this a good plan? Or is it just a fool’s errand with no hope of success? The decision I make will affect all of Panthasos. The lives of thousands of men, women, and children are in my hands.

  Wily sat there, staring down through the translucent floor at the kitchen below. It felt as if a pair of invisible hands were pushing down on his shoulders with such force that he might break through the glass floor of the dining room and go tumbling down to where the chefs were cleaning the dishes. He had to say something. He had to make a decision.

  “I think we should try to find the lair beast,” Wily said, his voice cracking.

  “Are you sure?” Odette asked, sensing his hesitation.

  “I’m certain,” Wily said.

  But the only thing Wily was certain of was that he wasn’t certain about anything at all.

  * * *

  HAVING LEFT BEFORE dawn, Wily and his companions were treated to a glorious sunrise over the Eastern Gorge. But even the swath of orange and pink didn’t lift his spirits.

  Odette, always the morning elf, called over to Wily from her neighboring horse. “I think that’s proof that sunrises beat sunsets every day of the week.”

  Roveeka, who had taken her favorite spot on Moshul’s shoulders, nodded in agreement.

  Lumina, who was at the head of the group, led them over the next rise, giving Wily a clear view of the Parchlands. It was a strange sight to behold. Much of the Parchlands were long plains of browned grass and dusty rocks, but thanks to Wily and his knack for engineering, cutting through it were snakes of emerald-green vegetation. An extended drought had left the once fertile farmland barren and lifeless, but Wily, along with a team of locksage engineers and gwarven builders, had constructed a new network of aqueducts. Now there were giant stone rivers elevated in the sky, built to deliver water from the high streams far down to the dry farmlands.

  “Quite a feat of construction,” Pryvyd said, looking out at the aqueducts, his new spiked shield hanging at his side. “Something to feel proud of.”

  Wily tried to squeeze out a smile, but he kept thinking about all the people who were counting on him to stop Stalag and the army of stone golems the cavern mages were building. It made his stomach flip like a turtle under a waterfall.

  As they galloped toward the first snake of green, Wily could see a magnificent rainbow stretching beneath the length of the aqueduct. Wily had engineered it so that a gentle spray of water would shoot out from the large pipes all along their path. It had been tricky to design a system that delivered just enough water to allow plants to grow. If too much shot from the aqueducts, the entire field would flood and turn into an uninhabitable swamp of thick mud. So far, the experiment had been a success.

  “What’s wrong?” Roveeka asked Moshul as he slowed to a halt behind Wily.

  Moshul bent down and put his head against the ground, listening. Everyone pulled their horses to a stop. The moss golem could hear vibrations in the mud and stone. It was almost as if the ground could tell him things. After a moment, Moshul lifted his head and began to sign.

  Pryvyd translated. “He hears frantic feet pounding against the earth. People running in fear.”

  Moshul pointed to a cluster of cottages and barns beyond the first six aqueducts. Righteous didn’t waste a moment. It pulled the sword from Pryvyd’s sheath and flew off.

  “Wait up!” Pryvyd shouted at his departing arm. “Don’t make me tie a leash to you.”

  Pryvyd snapped the reins of his horse and galloped after Righteous. Wily and the others were quick to follow. They raced under the first aqueduct and through the gentle mist that sprayed down. As their path took them through five more, Wily could feel his shirt soak with water.

  Ahead, he saw the small town was in a state of chaos. Farmers and their families were running from houses and shops as a swarm of slither trolls bashed open doors and tore open shutters.

  “This place looks good for me,” a slither troll with a long, crooked nose shouted as he stuck his head into a farmhouse. “Plenty of room for all my clubs and my pet rats.”

  “I’m taking this one,” another slither troll said as she started carving a deep gash in the wooden door of a cottage with her fingernail. “And the cottage next door too.”

  “They’re not yours to take,” a farmer shouted as she swung a rake at the invading slither trolls.

  “This will all be ours soon,” the long-nosed troll replied, snatching the tool from the farmer’s hand.

  The slither troll was about to swing the rake at the terrified woman when Righteous flew across and blocked the blow with a sword.

  “Go back to the dungeon you crawled out of,” Odette called as she vaulted off her horse.

  With a handspring, she leaped to the side of the farmer and snatched a shovel from the ground. But it soon became clear that defending the cottage would be too difficult; it was quickly surrounded by a dozen more trolls.

  “Over here!” Roveeka said from her perch on Moshul’s shoulders.

  Moshul spread his legs, allowing Odette and the farmer to run through them. As soon as they were safely behind him, Moshul snapped his legs shut.

  “They’re going to take my house,” the farmer said.

  “This way,” Odette insisted, taking the woman’s hand and pulling her farther away from danger.

  Wily and Lumina rode deeper into town to find dozens more slither trolls rampaging through the streets. Their slimy footprints painted the earth in a dizzying pattern of green and black.

  “Where did they all come from?” Wily asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think he has something to do with it.” Lumina gestured to an obese man in a tattered brown robe floating a few feet off the ground.

  “From now on,” the obese man yelled, “this town shall be called Girthbellow. For I am Girthbellow the Great.”

  The slither trolls in the town square cheered in celebration.

  “As the Prince of Panthasos,” Wily shouted in his most declarative voice, “I order you to leave.”

  “You won’t be the prince of anything for much longer,” Girthbellow chortled. “Stalag came to my catacomb. Told me the time of the magic-born has come at last. The stone golems will see to that.”

  “He spoke too soon,” Odette said.

  Righteous, Pryvyd, Odette, Moshul, and Roveeka came up behind Wily and Lumina.

  “There’s thirty-eight of us,” Girthbellow chortled. “And I see just six of you.”

  Righteous raised its sword defiantly.

  “Six and a quarter,” Girthbellow corrected himself.

  A dozen more slither trolls exited stores and cottages nearby.

  “He’s got a point,” Odette whispered to Wily.

  But Wily didn’t hear what Odette had said. He had just noticed something peculiar. There was one portion of the town’s marketplace that had no footprints at all—a wide circle surrounding a cart overflowing with cherry tomatoes.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Wily said. “Follow me.”

  Wily sprinted for the cart as the others chased behind him. Once within the circle, Wily pointed to the elastic tarp hanging ove
r the nearby potato stall.

  “Moshul, grab that,” Wily said.

  As Moshul pulled down the stretchy piece of cloth, Wily quickly turned to the others. “We had a slither troll in Carrion Tomb once. Despite being fierce and nasty, they have really sensitive skin. Especially to acidic things like amoebolith ooze, lichenberries—and, I’m hoping, cherry tomatoes.”

  “And you’re planning on making them a salad?” Odette asked in disbelief.

  “No,” Wily said as Moshul handed him the tarp. “We’re going to build a giant slingshot.”

  “To fire cherry tomatoes at the trolls?” Odette asked with even more disbelief.

  The slither trolls neared, slicing the air with their black dagger-sharp fingernails.

  Wily stretched the tarp across the back of the tomato cart, tying both ends in place. He loaded a dozen ripe fruit into the slingshot, pulled back, aimed at a pair of slither trolls, and fired.

  The soft projectiles soared through the air and struck the trolls on their legs and bellies. The trolls both let out pained yelps. “Ohhh! That burns!” one screamed. “Ouch. Ouch. Ouchie.”

  The trolls turned and fled as Wily loaded the slingshot again. The other trolls ducked in fear as more tomatoes took to the sky and landed with explosive splatters on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Girthbellow screamed at the trolls as a cherry tomato smacked him in the side of the face.

  The slither trolls ran from the town as Wily continued to slingshot the acidic fruit. The hovering Girthbellow looked around, realized this was a battle he couldn’t win, and started to back away as well.

  “We’ll be back soon to claim this town,” Girthbellow shouted as he was doused in bits of tomato pulp. “Once the golems march, it will be you who will be fleeing in terror.”

  Girthbellow turned and soared off after his slither troll minions. When they were gone, the farmers of the town came out from their hiding spots.

  “You’re safe now,” Wily called to the people, proud that his ingenuity had saved the day.

  No one smiled or clapped though. They all looked … angry.