by Perrin Briar
Bryan swung his cudgel at a skeleton, caving in its skull. The skeleton continued to swing with its chipped sword. Bryan ducked to avoid the blow. He kicked the skeleton with the sole of his boot.
The skeleton fell back, but it was up again in an instant, performing an odd movement that resulted in its feet returning to the floor first, then its shins, its knees and thigh bones, until it was standing upright.
“I feel like I’m in Simon and the Argonauts,” Bryan said.
“Simon and the what?” Cassie said, slashing at her own skeleton.
“Remind me to educate you on American culture when we get home,” Bryan said.
“If it looks something like them, you can keep it,” Cassie said.
Bryan swung his cudgel like Babe Ruth, knocking the creature’s head from its shoulders. Its whole body rocked with the blow, its head flying through the air. It turned to face Bryan again, headless. But it didn’t seem to make much difference to the skeleton. If you were as good without your head as with it, what was the point?
The skeleton lurched forward again, this time finding its way past Bryan’s defenses, knocking Bryan to the floor. Bryan struggled to wriggle free. He pushed at the bones on top of him. It was not heavy, but difficult to maintain a grip.
The skeleton reached over to grab its chipped sword and raised it high above its head, its beeping red heart visible through its ribs. Bryan was too fearful to respond, and held his arms over his head. He was doomed.
But the blow never came. Instead, the skeleton’s lifeless—and this time, really lifeless—body fell on top of Bryan.
A hand reached down and helped Bryan to his feet. The hand was small, but strong. It was ice cold, and for a moment Bryan wondered if perhaps he’d grabbed a skeleton’s hand by mistake.
“You have to destroy their hearts,” his rescuer said. “Or what passes for their heart. Tell me Bryan, were you one of these creatures once?”
“Rosetta?” Bryan said. “What are you doing here?”
45.
“I’M FINE thanks,” Rosetta said. “How are you?”
Bryan tentatively reached out and put his hands on Rosetta’s shoulders. He couldn’t believe it. She was real.
“Rosetta?” Bryan said.
“The one and only,” Rosetta said.
Bryan wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close.
“I can’t believe it’s really you!” he said. “For a minute there I thought I’d lost my mind. Are there more of you? Is there a rescue team down here?”
“There is a rescue team,” Rosetta said with a nod. “It’s the same underpaid, overworked rescue team you’ve always had. Me.”
“I’m so pleased to see you,” Bryan said. “But how did you get here?”
“Don’t dock my wages for insubordination,” Rosetta said, “but don’t you think we should worry about these undead fellows before having this discussion?”
“Of course,” Bryan said.
The locals looked at Rosetta uncertainly at first, gawping at her metal arm. They seemed unsure whether she was one of the monsters they were meant to be fighting or not. But once they saw her in action, tearing the undead apart, it soon became obvious whose side she was on.
Rosetta’s robot arm turned out to be just what they needed. It was the skeleton warriors’ Achilles’ Heel. Rosetta ran at the undead, blocking their attack with her metal arm before thrusting her hand into their chest cavities, grasping the blinking red box, and ripping it free.
She repeated the procedure over and over, the metal of her arm breaking the flimsy metal of the middle ages. She needed the support from the locals, and they were happy to give it to her, just as long as they didn’t need to be on the front line.
“That’s funny,” Rosetta said.
“What is?” Bryan said.
“Usually it’s me that’s getting my heart ripped out,” Rosetta said.
“Remind me to set you up with some of my friends when we get back,” Bryan said.
“They’re the ones I’m talking about,” Rosetta said.
“Then consider them unfriended,” Bryan said.
Thanks to Rosetta they were making good headway through the skeleton horde.
“You seem to have this sorted out,” Bryan said.
“You’re about to leave now, right?” Rosetta said. “As usual. Just when it’s starting to get interesting.”
“Can you hold the fort?” Bryan said. “And keep pushing the advantage?”
“There are still a whole lot of these beasties out there,” Rosetta said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Bryan smiled. Rosetta’s best was always more than enough.
“And Rosetta,” Bryan said.
“Huh?” Rosetta said.
“It’s great to see you,” Bryan said.
Rosetta grinned, before it evaporated into her customary scowl.
“Get out of here, you big softie,” she said, turning back to the skeleton horde. “These worlds have had a bad influence on you.”
You could accuse Rosetta of being many things, but being a softie was certainly not one of them.
46.
THE FAMILY came running out of the castle. There were two skeletons on their tail. They turned to deal with them, sending their bones sprawling across the steps.
“How are we going to stop all these monsters?” Zoe said. “The skeletons won’t stop. Not while they have power to move.”
“There must be an antennae,” Bryan said. “I saw Lady Maltese using some kind of device to control the skeletons. It must be what she uses to control the dinosaur too.”
“A what?” Cassie said.
“An antennae,” Bryan said. “For Lady Maltese’s device to send its signal. Without it she wouldn’t be able to tell them what to do.”
“Great,” Zoe said. “Except I’ve never seen an antennae here! And it would stand out in a town like this, don’t you think?”
“I’ve seen one,” Aaron said. “Or what might be one.”
“Where?” Bryan said.
“On the roof of the tallest tower in the castle—the inventor’s tower,” Aaron said.
Bryan turned to look at the statue of the dragon being vanquished by Saint George. It was an odd shape, and now that he looked at it, it did look a bit like an antennae with its protruding appendages.
“That’s it,” Bryan said.
“We’ll destroy it,” Cassie said, nodding to herself and Aaron.
“Will we?” Aaron said.
“We’ll destroy the antennae while you catch Lady Maltese,” Cassie said.
Aaron ran the two options through his mind. He knew which one was safest and the least likely to get him killed.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Zoe said. “We don’t even know where Lady Maltese is. She could be anywhere.”
Cassie shook her head and gave Zoe a friendly roll of her eyes.
“There can only be one place she could be,” Cassie said. “The one place the locals would never go, where she had a T-Rex defending all this time.”
“The caves,” Zoe said.
Cassie and Aaron turned and ran toward the inventor’s tower. Bryan watched them with pride.
“You have to admit, we did a great job in raising them,” he said.
“I’ll certainly agree with that,” Zoe said. “Even if they are a handful at times.”
“Looks like a handful is what we need,” Bryan said
He was looking at the smoldering remains of the town’s west wall. Whatever was on the other side could breathe white-hot fire. The wall wouldn’t last much longer.
“It looks like we’re about to get a whole much of handfuls as we speak,” Zoe said.
The creature’s bright green crest was visible over the wall. A giant eye peered through an arrow slit. If Bryan hadn’t know better, he would have said the monster was smiling at him. It took a step back, threw its weight against the wall that was already leaning dangerously inwar
d, before finally giving up the ghost and falling forward.
47.
CASSIE AND AARON ascended the spiral staircase in record time. It was a good thing it was them who had to run up the stairs, as Cassie was sure Bryan would have died before making it to the top.
She really needed to get him to join a gym when they got back to the surface. Aaron, on the other hand, must have developed a few muscles during their adventure beneath the surface. If he kept it up she was sure he could perform very well in sports at school.
They got to the top. Cassie’s eyes immediately went to the spot on the floor where they had found the inventor’s dead body. It was gone now, and every attempt had been made to scrub the blood stains from the stone, but the cleaners had failed. The stains were faint, but still there.
She tore her eyes away and surveyed the room, rising to the ceiling. They needed to get on the roof somehow, so they might destroy the antennae.
But how?
Cassie searched amongst the detritus and half-built inventions. She came out with a length of rope.
“What are you doing?” Aaron said.
“Fancy a trip up Memory Lane?” Cassie said.
“Not really,” Aaron said.
“Tough,” Cassie said. “We’re going to relive our time in the magma world and climbing from the nest. But instead of climbing down, we’ll be climbing up.”
“Goodie,” Aaron said, shoulders slumping.
48.
BRYAN HAD been in situations like this before: knowing what needed to be done, but having no idea how they were meant to carry it out. Admittedly those times never featured a giant reptile that was meant to be extinct, although Mr. Myers, a former business partner, did have traits similar to the great king of the dinosaurs. They needed to get it away from the town, but they had no plan.
“We’ll never outrun it,” Zoe said.
“So what?” Bryan said. “Just leave it here. We only need to get into the caves and find the Passage. Then we can get out of here.”
“While the kids are still in the town, in the tallest tower?” Zoe said.
“Good point,” Bryan said. “What do you suggest we do?”
Neigh!
It was a nervous chattering sound, punctuated with solid thumps on a thick door.
“The horses,” Zoe said.
They ran to the castle’s stables and found the horses inside. They were stirring, nervous with the approaching monster.
“We should let them out, don’t you think?” Bryan said.
“We’ll lead the dinosaur away so it won’t bother these horses anymore,” Zoe said. “We just need two horses. Let’s see…”
She moved along the line and found what she considered to be the two best horses in the stables. She opened the stable door and put her hands to the first horse, a large black stallion. Lord Maltese’s own horse. She calmed him down. He grunted against her hands, but soon quietened. Zoe led him out of the stable and put his saddle on.
“You take him,” Zoe said.
She prepared a beautiful brown gelding for herself—the same she’d ridden several times already. It was calm at the sight of her. She climbed on.
“Now what?” Bryan said.
“Now we lead the dinosaur away,” Zoe said.
“How?” Bryan said.
“You’ll get its attention first and lead it out of town,” Zoe said. “I’ll head out now, close to the woodland where we first entered when we got here. By the time you get to me, I’ll be rested and ready to run. Then the dinosaur will chase me.”
“Like a relay race,” Bryan said. “But what do we do with the dinosaur in the end? We can’t just get it to chase us all the time.”
“We won’t need to,” Zoe said. “Is your trap still set up from when you tried to capture it before?”
“Yes,” Bryan said.
“Then that’s what we’ll lead him toward,” Zoe said. “He’ll spring the trap, and he’ll be caught.”
“Wait,” Bryan said. “I just thought of something.”
“I guessed that at your exclamation of ‘Wait’,” Zoe said. “What is it?”
“What makes you think the dinosaur will even chase me?” Bryan said. “There’s plenty around here for him to eat.”
Zoe had the audacity to smile.
“Because a predator never forgets prey that escaped him,” she said.
Bryan thought back to the crazy, near-mad look on the dinosaur’s face when the family had made it to the town. It had been murderous…
And now Bryan was about to put himself on the menu.
Zoe kissed Bryan on the lips.
“See you in a bit,” she said. “Be careful.”
She smacked her gelding’s rump and they shot forward into the street. She took a hard left, in the opposite direction to where the dinosaur was.
“Be careful!” Bryan said.
He shook his head and chuckled to himself.
“That’s a laugh,” he said.
49.
AARON COMPLAINED, but there was little he could do. They needed to get to the top of the roof, and besides climbing up and destroying it by hand, there was no other way of doing it. Luckily, Aaron was on board. He was the one with all the ideas.
Aaron surveyed the equipment and half-built inventions lying on the floor and strewn across the tables. Piles of items in various stages of the creative process.
Aaron snapped off some of these pieces, and attached it to another piece, before winding it all off with the thick wire and rope. He worked on autopilot, having already memorized where all the pieces were.
I have got to get my memory into better shape, Cassie thought. But that was an idea for later. If there was a later. First she needed to get to the roof. Now was her time to shine.
Aaron handed what he’d made to Cassie. She was the sporty person, the action hero. She looked at what he’d handed her. It was a length of rope with a long stick threaded sideways.
“What’s this for?” Cassie said. “It looks like something a trapeze artist would use.”
“It’s for you to throw over the tower,” Aaron said. “It’s wide so it’s easier for me to catch, and I can brace it on this side of the window in case you fall.”
“Got all bases covered I see,” Cassie said.
“You never know,” Aaron said.
Cassie approached the window, while Aaron crossed to the opposite side.
“Ready?” Cassie said, holding the stick in one hand and the length of rope in the other.
“Wait,” Aaron said.
He cast about and identified what he was looking for: a large net that reminded Cassie of a dreamcatcher. Aaron snapped it off and moved toward the opposite window, holding the net outside.
“Okay,” he said, nodding to Cassie.
“Here we go,” Cassie said.
She would throw it too high, she decided. It was better to get it over the roof than to get it stuck on something. She stood on the window’s ledge, bracing herself with the hand holding the coil of rope. She moved her arm up and down, judging the distance and how hard she needed to throw the object.
She pulled her arm back and released the stick. It looped up high, as high as Cassie had been able to throw it, but she knew the moment it had left her hand that the angle was off.
“It’s not going to come down directly at you,” Cassie said. “Sorry.”
“Which side do you think it will come down at?” Aaron said, looking out of the window and trying to see where the stick was.
“On your right,” Cassie said.
Aaron held his net out, preparing to catch the weight. There was a thud on the roof, and then a sliding sound like something was skidding across the roof tiles. A few of the tiles came loose and fell into Aaron’s net, passing through the gaps and falling to the ground below. Cassie hoped the holes wouldn’t let the stick pass through too.
Cassie’s rope had ceased unspooling. The stick was up on the roof somewhere. And then it began unwindin
g again. That was a relief. She would have had to have pulled the rope back and tried again.
“Here it comes!” Cassie said.
Aaron had to lean over at an extreme angle out of the window in order to be within reach of it, utilizing his legs as placeholders. The weight tried to drag him over, but he held on and pulled back.
“Got it?” Cassie said.
Aaron grunted, not saying a word. He gradually pulled himself back inside, inch by inch. Cassie wanted to dash forward to help him, but doing so meant letting go of the rope she held in her hands. She couldn’t risk losing it.
Aaron pulled himself back inside and held the stick in his hands.
“I’ve got it,” he said, mildly out of breath.
Aaron turned the stick sideways so it was supported on both sides of the window. He picked up more sticks and wound them around the rope, securing it and making it stronger. It was a load-bearing weight and could easily take Cassie’s weight.
“Well, here we go,” Cassie said.
She gripped the rope and was about to climb when Aaron picked up a length of wood—what look like the leg of a polished coffee table—and handed it to her.
“What’s this for?” Cassie said.
“You didn’t intend on smashing the antennae with your hands, did you?” Aaron said.
“Good point,” Cassie said.
She took the makeshift cudgel and attached it to her belt. She turned to the rope and began to pull herself up. After the adventure in the snake’s nest, her muscles had grown strong. She reached up and pulled herself onto the roof with ease.
Now she was on the roof, the antennae—if that was what it was—was within swinging distance. She crouched to lower her center of gravity and edged toward the statue. It was a beautiful thing. It seemed a shame to smash it to pieces. But that was what had to be done. She raised her weapon to begin her reign of destruction.
