by Perrin Briar
“I go to sleep and when I wake up, poof! It’s there!” Jeffrey said.
“That’s remarkable,” Zoe said. “We need more people like you on the surface to come up with solutions to our problems.”
“I get dizzy, feel a headache coming on, and I know then it’s time for me to lie down and let nature take its course,” Jeffrey said. “When I wake up, my hands are covered in oil or grease, or whatever it is I used during the night, and the finished item is on the table. The only difficulty then is trying to figure out what it is the damn thing does. I’ve near blown my ear off experimenting with these things.”
“Incredible,” Zoe said.
“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Jeffrey said with a grumble.
“No, I meant about your process,” Zoe said. “I know there are creative people on the surface who have ideas while they sleep and then use those ideas once they wake, but to do what you do… It’s like sleepwalking, but sleep inventing. It’s an amazing gift.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not always amazing,” Jeffrey said. “I get the worst headaches, usually when I wake up after a hard night of inventing. It doesn’t happen every night, only when inspiration strikes, I suppose.”
“We thought it best to keep him in isolation while he’s coming up with his designs,” Lady Maltese said. “We don’t want to wake him, in case it disturbs him from his work. Besides, I usually like to retire around this time. I have to keep up with my knitting somehow.”
“Yes,” Zoe said, still in awe. “That sounds like a good idea to me.”
28.
ABIGAIL LED Aaron through the streets of Silene, introducing him to the various districts and the people who ran the local businesses and services. She knew everyone by name, and they all knew her. She received free samples of their produce, which she always split in half and shared with Aaron. They were now returning to the castle.
“No one knows how old the town of Silene really is,” Abigail said. “But everyone knows the story of George and the dragon associated with it.”
“George and the dragon?” Aaron said.
“You haven’t heard it?” Abigail said. “It’s pretty famous. Well, so the elders say.”
“I might know of it,” Aaron said. “Refresh my memory.”
“It’s about a dragon that attacked a town, our town the story goes, the town of Silene,” Abigail said. “This was back before we got sucked down a sinkhole and trapped here, when we were on the surface, in England. It attacked and destroyed everything we’d built. It came up out of the lake, killing the locals, drowning its victim as it descended back into its lair.”
“What happened?” Aaron said.
“Well, the town began sacrificing its livestock to the dragon,” Abigail said. “But they soon ran out. And then they began sacrificing their children to the beast. They did it via a random lottery. Whichever two kids’ numbers were chosen, were sent to the beast. Then one day the lord’s daughter’s number came up.
“The lord pleaded with the people, offering half his lands, half his possessions and half his gold. But the townspeople refused, and his daughter was taken down to the lake. It was blind luck that George was passing by. He slayed the dragon and rescued the lord’s daughter.”
“It’s a good story,” Aaron said. “Is there any truth to it, do you think?”
“Who knows,” Abigail said. “You’re from the surface. Could there be much truth to it?”
“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “Only in the most abstract terms, I guess. It wouldn’t have been a dragon. It would have been something else, a virus or a lion or some other dangerous thing.”
Abigail shrugged.
“It was just a story,” she said. “That is, until we came down here. History has a funny way of repeating itself.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron said.
“About fifteen years ago some townspeople spoke of hearing growls and roars from the caves,” Abigail said. “No one took any notice of them, but then people started going missing, and before we knew it, we were missing five percent of our population. At first the people went missing in the caves, or near them, and then livestock started going missing, and then people from their own homes. And then one day the townspeople emerged from their homes to see the dragon with their own eyes, pulling a man toward the lake.
“People couldn’t believe what was happening. It wasn’t every day you saw a dragon. People ran to the church and prayed for salvation, for forgiveness for whatever it was they were supposed to have done to offend Him. As always, there was no response, and the killings kept happening. No matter what the people did, no matter what ideas the lord came up with, they always failed.
“We couldn’t sacrifice our livestock. Few enough had survived the sinkhole as it was. They were too valuable.”
“More valuable than people?” Aaron said.
“Sick, isn’t it?” Abigail said. “But true. If we lost every member of our flock there would be no way to replenish their number. We had more people, so they were more valuable. No one said it at the time, of course. But they all knew it. Their lives, and the lives of their children, were worth less than the sheep and the cows and chickens. I’m sure they would have come up with plans to defeat the dragon, but none of them would have worked. They were ill-equipped and badly trained. They would have all perished.
“First, they went through the old people. They mostly gave themselves up. But when they ran out, the decision was made to sacrifice the kids.”
“No,” Aaron said. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes,” Abigail said. “Not the best chapter in our history. Kids couldn’t do the workload an adult could, and we couldn’t exactly start culling people who were doing important jobs already.”
“What about the parents of the kids?” Aaron said. “They let this happen?”
“They had no choice,” Abigail said. “They argued and said they would take their kid’s place, but it had been agreed beforehand that the kids would be chosen at random and had no choice but to take their place on the dragon’s platter. Hard to imagine now. There’s a noticeable gap in our demographic. A whole generation that was almost entirely eaten.
“Soon after my parents took over as the lord and lady of the town, they discovered the reason why the lake was always rotting and covered with flies,” Abigail said. “In the past, the townspeople stayed away from the lake, thinking it cursed. And then they discovered bodies were coming up out of the lake. They renamed it Lake Rebirth and fed the bodies to the dragon.
“The killings stopped. The townspeople immediately fell in love with my parents, supporting them with other things they wanted to do, like building a wall to protect themselves, in case the bodies stopped coming out of the lake.
“We made a statue celebrating the event. It shows George defeating the dragon, but really it was my parents that defeated it. It’s on the roof of the tower the inventor now resides in.
“We’re becoming stronger, more populated, and soon we might have the technology and manpower to destroy the dragon. It won’t take a single hero, but a whole town full of them. The statue will reflect the future too, of us overthrowing the monster. You see, our story is not yet complete. We still have to write the final chapter and, with any luck, it will be over very soon.”
29.
THE FAMILY returned to the castle to find another banquet had been laid on. Were they to expect this every night they were present at the castle? The family were tired, but they went through the rigmarole of having to mix with the townspeople again.
Bryan wasn’t sure which group he disliked most. The undisguised filth of the streets, or the perfumed stink of the nobles. How could you trust anyone who so obviously attempted to cover up the truth about themselves? In truth, his real dislike was being forced to converse with those he had no choice but to talk to.
There was no such thing as a free lunch, and payment in this case was to have to converse with the locals, who plied them with questions and conc
erns. They were much more open in their asking of questions than last night, and it made the family exhausted to have to keep answering them.
Finally, happily, the family made it to the front of the hall. They took their seats and prepared to stuff themselves. Conversation was slow at first, the family necking as much of the delicious food as they could into their bodies. Only then did they share what they had discovered and learned with each other. Lots of interesting things, but no sign of the Passage.
The truth was frightening to Bryan. What if the lord was right and there was no Passage out of here? What if it had somehow been destroyed? What if this was as far as they could go? Suddenly the food tasted like ash in Bryan’s mouth.
The town of Silene was a perfectly nice place to live, but it was so small and parochial that Bryan wouldn’t have been able to live there for long without feeling depressed at everything he’d lost and worked hard for on the surface.
But no, Bryan thought. There had to be a Passage. There was always a Passage. They just hadn’t found it yet. The most likely place—if for no other reason than Murphy’s Law, was for the Passage to be in the one location they couldn’t yet get to: the caves. It would be tucked away in there somewhere.
After the desserts and cakes were served, Lord Maltese took to the stage and addressed the audience. Did any of them have any concerns they wanted to address? After their first round of questions the previous night, and the fact there had been no sign of the dragon for one whole day, meant the locals were more comfortable with their present situation.
“No one?” Lord Maltese said. “Does no one have a concern they would like to address?”
A hand went up. It was at the lord’s head table.
“Bryan?” Lord Maltese said. “You have an enquiry?”
“I do,” Bryan said, getting to his feet. “I have a question for you and the whole town.”
“We’d like to hear it,” Lord Maltese said, retaking his seat.
He was clearly intrigued by Bryan’s intervention.
Bryan stood before the townsfolk.
“I have one question, and it won’t take long,” he said. “You have a dragon problem. It pillaged your livestock, your friends and family. You came up with a solution, by feeding the dragon the bodies of the dead. And you’ve built your walls and developing weapons to protect yourselves. My question, then, is why do you continue to feed the dragon?”
Bryan let the question sink in. A hush came over the audience. Bryan tried to read their expressions, but they were blank.
“Perhaps I might explain,” Lord Maltese said with a friendly smile. “Perhaps my explanation of our situation wasn’t very clear earlier. We feed the dragon so we might live in peace and continue to develop our resources. If we did not feed the monster, it would attack us once again and destroy everything we’ve managed to forge till now.”
“I understand that,” Bryan said. “But why not take the opportunity to kill it?”
Lord Maltese smiled again, as if talking to a slow child.
“As I said before, we lack the resources to mount an attack on the creature,” he said. “It would have torn through us, destroyed us. Decimated our population, and we’d have nothing left to show for it.”
“Yes,” Bryan said. “But why didn’t you kill it?”
Lord Maltese frowned. He thought he’d just answered this question.
“I’m not sure I understand…” he said.
“There are more ways to kill a dangerous creature than to attack it head-on,” Bryan said. “You could trap it, drown it, starve it, poison it, burn it… You’re limited only by your imagination. Once the monster is out of the way, you could continue developing at your own pace in a manner you choose. You’d never have to fear the dragon again.”
There was a shiver of nervous murmurs through the town’s inhabitants. They were entertaining the idea, sounding like a hive of killer bees.
But Bryan wasn’t finished. He had plenty more to say yet.
“There’s also the evidence of tampering,” he said.
“Tampering?” a local said. “What does that mean?”
“It means changing, editing something,” Bryan said. “About a hundred years ago people were beginning to make discoveries of fossils of large animals no one had ever seen before. They were being described as giant crocodiles and iguanas. Over the century that passed, we gained great insight into these ancient creatures. We called them dinosaurs, giant animals that lived millions of years ago all over the surface.
“One of the creatures, one of the most fierce and terrifying, was called a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or T-Rex for short. They were believed to be extinct, like all dinosaurs, until we got sucked through a sinkhole and saw they were very much still alive, deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
“You have one here too. Only it isn’t just a T-Rex, but an altered creature. It carries a metal pack on its back, perhaps as a shield or protection, I don’t know. And the way it breathes fire, that isn’t natural in any living creature. This too could be a machine someone attached to it to make it look more like a dragon.
“On the surface we have advanced technology and could build these things, a way to upgrade a creature like this. I realize these things might seem like magic to you, but I can assure you, they’re not. They’re processes that abide by the laws of science, that we manipulate and use to our advantage. They are not magic. There is no such thing.
“But someone here, or out there, as yet undiscovered by us, is trying to scare you into believing this creature is a dragon, when really it is just a dinosaur in costume.
“How the T-Rex got to be here is anyone’s guess, but it shouldn’t be here. It is a mistake of nature, for you and this creature to be occupying the same space. But it can be undone, and it can be undone by you all.”
A local stood up. It was Montgomery.
“What you suggest is impossible!” he said. “We cannot kill the dragon!”
“It is impossible if you accept it is,” Bryan said. “It doesn’t look impossible from where I sit. I’ve seen people with far less intelligence and technology than you defeat a similar creature in another world. You can too.”
The townsfolk muttered amongst themselves.
“How would you suggest we do it?” Cynthia Morris said, standing up so everyone could hear her loud booming voice.
Bryan was hoping someone would have the courage to ask that question.
“We starve the beast out,” Bryan said. “We stop feeding it.”
The locals exploded into loud outbursts:
“Not feed it?”
“Do you know what it’ll do to us if we stopped? It’ll come for our children!”
“We’ve got a family to worry about!”
“What happens when it gets inside the walls? Then we’ll all be dead!”
Bryan held up his hands to help allay their fears.
“You’re afraid,” he said. “I would be afraid too if I were in your shoes. But look, the world where the bodies come from was destroyed. It means there will no longer be a constant influx of feeding material for the monster. There might be a lot at first, but they will quickly dry up. The monster is going to be starved out anyway. I say we strike while we have control.”
“As soon as the dragon gets in here, with its fiery breath, it’ll destroy our town!” Montgomery said.
“We’ll starve the dragon,” Bryan said. “He’ll come out of his lair. It’ll have no choice but to come out. We’ll have food set up, a trap to kill it. It’s a dumb animal. We can defeat it.”
“I say we let you defeat it!” another local said.
“We can’t let him anger the beast!” Montgomery said. “It’ll come after us after it’s done picking its teeth with his bones!”
“We’re in this trouble because of you!” Cynthia said, pointing a finger at Bryan. “And your family. If you hadn’t come here, the dragon would still be in its cave and we wouldn’t have to be afraid all over again!”
“Leaving you alone to cower in fear,” Bryan said. “To not stand up and fight.”
“I would rather not fight and survive than to stand and die!” Montgomery said.
Lord Maltese stood up, waving his hands to keep the people calm.
“Listen,” he said. “I can see Bryan has gotten you all a little riled up, but the truth is, he might be right. Perhaps it is time for us to rid our world of this demon from hell. It is only flesh and blood. We can destroy it if we only have the will. Perhaps all this time that was what we were really missing: a hero to champion our cause. To aid in Bryan’s effort to destroy the dragon, I will pledge a dozen of our guards to his effort.”
There were murmurs of assent from the locals. Sporadic clapping.
“We always planned to rid ourselves of this beast,” Lord Maltese said. “Perhaps now is the time.”
He raised a goblet.
“To Bryan,” he said. “Our dragon hunter.”
30.
THE TRAP consisted of half a dozen sheep carcasses courtesy of the lord’s larder and five buckets of pig blood from the town’s butchers. It would be irresistible to the monster.
The breeze was good, blowing in the direction of the caves, carrying the scent with it. There was no way the monster could avoid it. It would drive him berserk.
The trap was a simple one. A series of snares made of high tensile wire had been laid across the ground in a grid pattern. Once the monster approached, the wire would wrap around its foot and draw so tight it would cut into his thick flesh, slicing to the bone if the monster pulled too hard, which Bryan fully expected it would.
Another circle of wire hung suspended in midair in front of the food. This was their failsafe in case the wires on the ground were not sprung. The monster wouldn’t see it. Even Bryan couldn’t see it—he’d walked into it twice already. A pair of guards stood behind a tree with a rock that hung suspended to the choke wire.
Only once the creature had been adequately ensnared would the soldiers leap forward. Armed with pointed spears and sharp swords, they would hack at the monster as quickly as they were able. These guards were currently camped behind a large rock, along with Bryan and his family, that prevented them from being seen by the monster.
