Tala Phoenix and the Dragon's Lair

by Gabby Fawkes

  I knocked on another door again. Its handle twisted left, then right, then a voice behind it said sweetly, "Password?"

  I exchanged a look with my friends.

  "The Den?" Kian tried.

  No answer.

  Exasperated, I knocked on the two bottom doors at the same time, and almost immediately after they opened.

  "Yes?" a man snapped, peering out at us.

  Only he wasn't a man. He was the same height as us, could've been a brother. His face changed when he saw us.

  "Greetings and salutations!" His face broke out into a great convex-toothed smile. "Welcome, welcome!"

  He raced away, and seconds later, returned, saying, "Almost forgot."

  He waved the wand and all the small doors shifted and merged into a giant panel which we could squeeze through.

  "Security measures, you know," he said jovially. "You know how the warlockfficers can get."

  "Of course," Artemis said.

  "Not that they'd ever find anything here," he said with a cheeky wink.

  My eyes watered as I squinted through the smoke. Yup, I don’t see how they could’ve found anything – or seen anything, for that matter. Although, as we ventured in further, I could pick out shapes amidst the smoke:

  Vibrant red, orange and yellow patterned sheets billowing out from the walls.

  Rich satin pillows the size of bean bags.

  Slumps of rattily-dressed people.

  "I presume you'll be wanting the pipe?" the dwarf-man said.

  He had stopped in front of something, presumably the ‘pipe’, although that didn’t seem like the right word. Riddled with wooden and tree-looking knobs, twists and holes, it looked more like a rickety roller coaster than anything.

  He chuckled wheezily. "Not from these parts, are yeh? Well, I can assure you that every bend and turn increases the flavor and potency by tenfold."

  "Actually, we came with some questions,” I said. “If you have the time.”

  Kian elbowed me as the dwarf’s pudgy jaw actually dropped.

  "What my idiot comrade here was saying in such stupid and unnecessary tones," Kian said gruffly as I rubbed my side, glaring at her, "was that right here and now we have some goddamn things that need to be known. And you're going to tell us them."

  The dwarf’s suspicious squint slackened, and his matted brown-haired head bowed humbly. "My excuses, your dwarficy. I'm not used to your friend’s peculiar ways. That is of no consequence. Ask and you should be told. Seek and you shall find."

  "We seek the notorious fools and vagabonds," Kian said, puffing out her already expansive chest further with the importance of her words, "who stole from us and must pay the price. I don't expect an idiot like you to know, but if you give us even a speck of something resembling information, perhaps our trip to this dung-infested, smoky pit of shit won't have been entirely in tragically unavoidable vain."

  I could only gape in wonder at Kian, as her black beetle brows worked up and down furiously, as if daring the other dwarf to deny her. Was this what Linnie had told her about the dwarves – to insult them as much as humanly possible?

  Sure enough, after some under-his-breath muttering to himself, pink-cheeked, the dwarf lifted his clearly flattered gaze to Kian. "You’re too kind. Do tell, dwarfish comrade, who is it that you seek?"

  "Gypsies. Renegades. The Romamagi. Those who are sought all over but never found. Scum of the earth." Kian spat on the ground.

  Beside her, Dion was gaping at her, slack-jawed.

  The dwarf had been lifting his own scabby-looking pipe to his lips, but at Kian’s words he stopped. "No."

  Kian’s dark bushes of eyebrows erupted in rage. "Are you as deaf as an octopus or merely as stupid as a flea? I tell you, we seek the Romamagi."

  "All know that they are not to be found, they find,” the dwarf said simply. “I myself am seeking the blasted tricksters you speak of. They owe me a good score. As they do everyone else in this town. If I had the slightest dewdrop of an inkling where they were, I assure you, good dwarf, I would tell you."

  "Don’t good dwarf me," Kian growled. "In that case, our business is finished here. Good day, idiot sir."

  Only once we were out, did Demi ask, her blue-green eyes genuinely interested, “Octopuses are deaf?”

  “Apparently,” Kian said. “That’s the only thing I remember from science class, anyway.”

  Dion’s head was still turned back toward The Den, and he wore an almost mournful look on his face when he turned to us. "Would it have killed us to try the giant pipe thing?"

  "In all probability," Apollo said dryly. "Dwarves have exceedingly resilient constitutions. Have to, with all the abuse they sling upon their bodies on a daily basis. Smoking that pipe might just have killed the girls."

  "Or just put them out of commission for days," Axel said.

  I turned to look at Kian. "What was all that insulting and gruffness about?"

  "Just something Linnie mentioned," she explained. "Dwarves aren't just powerful warlocks, but they’re assholes too. That dwarf was mostly polite because he was serving us, but as customers, we’re allowed and expected to be dicks."

  “Hm,” I said, thinking.

  That had been our best shot, and what did we really have to show for it?

  "We found out basically nothing," Persephone summed up. "Other than that dwarves are dicks who like to smoke a lot."

  "Guess it's up to the next place Linnie told us about – the Stonetary," I said, jumping onto the next option before anyone could voice any more doubt. I had enough of my own, and something told me if we lost this go-get-‘em momentum, we wouldn’t easily get it back. Already, after this first minor letdown, I was already getting tired of failing. Maybe it was just how narrowly we’d escaped the DSA back at the courthouse or having had my powers taken away (and then gradually return), but whatever the reason, my whole body felt achy.

  As for going to the Stonetary, there frankly wasn't much else we could do. I wasn’t even sure what we were looking for – Linnie had been reticent to tell me, although she insisted we’d know it when we reached it at the end of town. Even Axel and the other Olympians were unusually quiet about this mysterious Stonetary’s specifics.

  So we continued down the old European-style streets, although now I noticed a few structures that looked like black glass telephone booths.

  "What are those?" I finally asked as we passed the third one.

  "Transportation systems," Artemis said, eyeing it carefully as we passed. “Kind of like a portadoor.”

  "Want to go check it out?" Dion asked eagerly.

  “No!” everyone chorused together.

  “Suit yourselves,” he said sulkily. “This Stonetary we’re headed to – it’s no walk in the park. You’ll see.”

  Pretty soon, too, by the looks of it. This had to be the edge of town, with the way the buildings dwindled to piles of rubble and garbage, then finally nothing. Until, a few meters away, I made out new structures – of a sort. Yes, there was something that stood in their place, something entirely more chilling.

  "Those aren't…" Demi said softly.

  She trailed off as we drew nearer.

  Told you burning’s the best thing for these vile stick-wavers, my PV said boredly as I gaped at the scene.

  Yep. This was the Stonetary, all right. This city of stone figures we saw before us were, in fact, people. Or had been, anyway.

  "But why?" Demi asked, her mouth a dismayed ‘o’ as she peered down at a boy, his small face frozen into horror forevermore.

  "This is the punishment for their crimes,” Artemis said.

  "But to be turned into stone?" I said, running a finger over the shoulder of one, then drawing back, almost feeling like I'd violated it.

  Can these frozen statue people still feel, think, hope?

  "It's not forever," Kian continued, putting on a brave front. "Unless they've done something really, really evil. For most of them it's a couple of years, if that."

&n
bsp; "It's despicable," Apollo said, his chin up, his eyes narrowed.

  "Beats killing people," Kian said.

  "I guess,” I said. “But still. They turn a kid to stone? And exactly what in Mathusalem is considered a crime, if this many people are being punished?" I gestured down the long neat rows of statue people, which disappeared in the distance, as far as the eye could see.

  "If you took all the people in all the jails back on earth and massed them in rows, it would probably look something like this," Demi admitted.

  I lifted my head and let my gaze go all the way, far into the distance, where the neat lines of statues ended.

  "Maybe," I said. "But I still don't see any of these renegade Romamagi. Why did Linnie think they’d come here anyway?"

  “To release any of their own who had the bad luck of being caught,” Kian explained.

  “It was a long shot at best,” Persephone stated, glaring at a particularly tall woman, as if she were to blame.

  "We don’t know that they’re not here,” Artemis reminded us, walking ahead a few paces. “It's not like they'd just be sauntering around if they were here to release one of their own.”

  "But how?" Kian asked. "Linnie said that once someone has been turned into stone and placed in the Stonetary, it's irreversible."

  "Irreversible, unless you know the right kind of dark magic," Axel said. "Why do you think the Romamagi get away with so much? They practice dangerous, unpredictable magic that the other witches don't dare."

  I gulped. And these were the witches whose help we were seeking?

  "Looks like it could take days to search here," I said, taking a glum 360-degree view to confirm what I’d known already – that was a hella lot of statues.

  "Not if we get a run on it," Apollo said with a nod to Axel and Artemis. Fanning out, they set off at a sprint, so fast that they were soon blurs in the distance. What I would’ve given to have Olympian speed right now and join them. Although for the first time shifting into my dragon form was tempting… I could probably cover a huge amount of ground fast.

  Oh, so now you deign to consider my existence, PV said in an unamenable tone.

  “Can you do that?” Persephone was asking Demi, her bored expression on the direction the Olympians had disappeared to.

  "Don't know," Demi admitted. "I’ve never tried."

  Funnily enough, she looked like she had no desire to either.

  “You’re not even going to try?” Kian asked her. “I mean, if I was able to move even half that rapido…”

  Without another word, Demi set off at a run. We watched, eyes peeled, as she raced off several paces away, then back to us.

  “Well?” she asked, breathing deeply, cheeks rosy.

  I couldn’t help it – I cracked up. Kian and I laughed so hard we collapsed on the ground.

  Demi frowned, and I mustered myself up, patting her. “Guess you didn’t retain all your Olympian powers.”

  “Figured,” Demi said with a sigh, “considering gym class.”

  This made Kian and me giggle some more, taking a good minute to calm down.

  "You're not going with them?" Kian asked Dion, who was staring off in the distance sadly.

  "All right, okay," he said reluctantly.

  "Wait up, I'm coming!" he called to no one in particular as he sped off and disappeared in the distance.

  "He thinks the others are still mad at him about the whole Athena thing," Kian confided in me as we sat ourselves down to wait.

  “I think we’re all just trying to figure out how to get the hell out of here without getting caught,” I said.

  Kian nodded, her eyes still in the distance. “I just wish we could help. But there’s no point in searching when the Olympians can do it ten times faster.”

  “Yeah,” Persephone said, rising guiltily. “I’ll go too.”

  “You sure?” Demi asked.

  Persephone nodded. “The more people help, the faster we get out of this creepy place.”

  And with that, she raced off after them.

  “Do you think I should go?” I asked my friends.

  Part of me wanted to help and just stretch my wings – it felt too long since I’d been in my dragon form. But the other part of me wanted to wait here and protect my friends if need be. And stay on the safe side, too, considering a massive flying dragon wasn’t exactly low-key.

  “Is that a trick question?” Kian said. “I mean, how is your dragon form not going to attract attention of every witch and DSA agent in a five-mile radius?”

  “She’s right,” Demi said firmly. “We’re better off just waiting.”

  My words from before echoed in my head: ‘we’re all just trying to figure out how to get the hell out of here without getting caught’. If we didn’t find the Romms, what were we going to do? Hide out indefinitely in the attic of Linnie’s family’s house?

  "Wonder what Jer and the others are doing now," Kian mused.

  "Probably eating," Demi said.

  We exchanged a smile.

  "Not eating anything good, now that Persephone isn’t there," I said, "Poor guys."

  Movement sounded from behind us.

  "Whoa," I said, turning. "That was fast. Is the Stonetary not actually that big?"

  "Stay where you are," a toneless voice said.

  Two men were striding toward me, their navy-blue robes swishing in the wind. With a single abrupt gesture of their wands, a metal contraption clamped around my body.

  14

  "Warlockfficers," Kian hissed.

  I fell to the ground, completely immobilized. It felt like a full-body form of handcuffs had closed around me.

  We know what to do with them, PV said eagerly.

  And I would've, if my body hadn’t gone ice-cold just then.

  "Tala!" I heard Demi cry.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my friends lying on the ground, bound by these metal full-body cuffs too.

  The warlockfficers strode up to us. Maniacal laughter boomed through the sky.

  They whirled around, already too late. Something flung them into the air with what looked like – I squinted – was that confetti and feathers?

  The maniacal laughter boomed louder, joined with the pounding of drums. The warlockfficers hovered in the air for a few seconds, struggling and yelling, before bursting into feathers.

  Seconds later, two anxiously squawking and fluttering flamingos plummeted to the ground. I squirmed, trying to free myself from the prison that encased me – mainly just so I could pinch myself and snap out of this crazy daydream.

  A witch with fire-engine red hair, bright blue lids and billowing, brightly-patterned pants strode up to them. Raising her hands and crashing them down, she left them where they stood.

  I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. The warlockfficers, now flamingos, had been turned to stone. They stood where they had fallen, messily half in and half out of the nice, tidy rows of stone figures.

  "Milsindra," a loud strident voice said as its dreadlocked owner strode over. "You put them out of alignment!"

  The woman, who had to be Milsindra, gasped. "Crikey, right you are. We’ll be stoned for this, we shall!"

  As they cracked up, another figure joined them, or rather, two figures. They were blue-haired Siamese twins, whose tan fleshy faces and low-lidded dark eyes looked supremely bored.

  "You could always move them," they said.

  "No, no," the man said definitively, "I believe our work of art should be noticed for what it is. An avant-garde act against the establishment and its stifling concise-rowed ways."

  His amber-eyed gaze slanted to us. His head tilted. "Now, what do we have here?"

  Behind him, more figures were coming into view – a whole mass of people.

  They brought with them braided, twisted, balled-up and dreadlocked hair of wild rainbow shades, billowing odd-patterned pants, jingling beads and smells of perfumes and spices.

  "We were looking for you," I said, almost unwilling to b
elieve our good fortune. "You're the Romamagi, aren’t you?"

  A catlike smile curled on the man's face.

  Although it was the woman who replied. She spoke coldly. "If you were looking for us, then you are no amigo of ours."

  "Romamagi are amigos and amigos are Romamagi," the Siamese twins intoned in unison.

  "Hold up," came another voice.

  A man creaked over. And by creaked, I mean literally. His wooden arms and legs seemed to work as perfectly as normal ones would, other than the sound. His face was so lined and weathered, it almost looked like one giant fold.

  "These are the ones the DSA seek," he said, swinging both arms to the sky, where we were still pictured, with a great creak.

  A stunned pause, then boisterous and bursting laughter from all around us.

  The Romamagi gave out a great, merry cry.

  "We’ll be rich for centuries!" one proclaimed.

  "We'll have a bargaining chip that can't be beat!" another shouted.

  "Jules," the woman said to the dreadlocked man, her face unimpressed. “You’re forgetting something.”

  "Si?" Jules said curiously.

  "The DSA are untrustworthy parásitos." She spat on the ground and rubbed it into the dirt with her boot. "Even if we do hand these ninas over, the DSA is as likely to throw us in prison or turn us to stone as anything else."

  Murmurs of grumpy agreement sounded through the crowd.

  "We're no friends of the DSA, either," Kian said.

  “In fact,” Demi said quietly, “we have Olympian friends. Who would not like us being locked up.”

  Utterly ignoring them, Jules paced around us, his eyes stopping here and there as he squinted at us. "Frick. Then whaddawe do with them?"

  "Lock them up!" the Siamese twins said stoutly, as they shared an enchanted apple, which said the same thing.

  Jules rubbed his chin between his thumb and his forefinger.

  He gave his dread-covered head a magnificent shake, then shrugged. "Seems the best for now."

  Minutes later, we were jostled as the donkeys beneath us scampered along. We had been transferred from our individual body cuffs to one giant, magic-glittering metal cage, which was covered by a musty, star-spangled afghan.