The Wizard And The Dragon (6 page)

The
next morning I woke up and my dad had killed the rat. He displayed it proudly
outside our front porch and I convinced myself that it wasn’t as intimidating
as my thoughts had built up. It wasn’t quite as large as what I imagined I saw
in the room at night, but it was still bigger than a cat, with teeth longer
than my fingers.

That
had been our definition of vermin. The vermin down here were the farren. They
had been shaped like a man, shrieked horrible noises, felt around with claws
instead of hands, and had taken a concentrated blast of fire to kill. That was
just the vermin. The rats.

I
never let go of Tower’s hand until we reached the end of the tunnel. There had
been no other turns, and when he held up the light I saw that the wall
glistened. It was bloated with gems and crystals and looked far too beautiful
to be in such a terrible place.

He
unhooked one of the pickaxes he had on his belt and handed me the bottle of
light. I clutched it awkwardly while still carrying the bags and food plate. He
struck the wall once and the sound of the impact rang down the tunnel behind
us. He struck twice more and then turned around to peer down the tunnel. I held
the light up and let a few moments pass in silence. He seemed satisfied and
went back to strike the wall.

This
became our routine. Tower would chip away at the wall while I kept watch.
Occasionally he would tap my shoulder and I would hold open one of the sacks
for him to deposit a large chunk of stone. The bags filled slowly and sometimes
more than an hour would pass with nothing being dropped into the sacks.

For
some reason I thought he would have been more precise and pried out individual
gems instead of large lumps of the wall. The work benches, piles of rocks, and
other tools I saw in the cellar suddenly made sense.

I
don’t know how long it took to fill the first two bags. They were heavy and I
dragged them aside and Tower plopped himself down next to me. Sweat covered his
face and had soaked through places in his clothes. He picked up the food we had
brought and removed the spell from around it. We ate in a miserable silence.

I
don’t think I even tasted the food. I don’t remember doing so. The sound of
chewing it made me uncomfortable and I was never quite sure if the noise in my
head was my teeth or something moving down the tunnel. Tower seemed to share my
reservations, at least in part, and kept watch the entire time.

When
we were finished I stuffed the plate into one of the bags. The clanging of
metal against rock continued for several more hours until the remaining two
bags were full. Nothing attacked us or even seemed to notice us the entire time.
At any previous point in my life I may have been a little disappointed but as
we finally left the mine unscathed I only felt relief.

In
the cellar, after the barriers had been put back into place, we washed
ourselves and drank from the well. The bags were emptied. The candles were
extinguished and we headed back up the stairs to be greeted by the twilight of
the day, when the coiled light around the inside of the tower began to give off
its most prominent shine.

I
slept well that night, and every following night of that week since we spent
each day in the mines. My nightmares still came but I still relished the rest.
After a few more excavations I began to relax a little down in the dark. None
of the creatures seemed to care about what we were doing and I began to believe
what Tower said about usually being undisturbed.

On
the final day, when Tower announced that we only needed one more trip to get us
through the upcoming winter, I was shown what happens when we weren’t left
alone.

The mining session
started as smoothly as all of the others. I was keeping watch and holding up
our light while sitting on a portion of the wall that Tower had excavated. Over
the week he had extended the tunnel by only a step or two. He told me that
after today we would begin to grind down what we had collected and extract the
gems. I was looking forward to something new to do but more than that I was
relieved to not be returning to the mines.

“How
much space is left in that bag?” he asked in a low whisper.

We
had started to risk talking to one another after being left alone for so many
days. The sound created by the pickaxe making contact with the wall was louder
than our voices, but Tower explained that it may be heard as normal noise to
some of the creatures that lived down there. The sound of a voice would be more
foreign and draw attention. Still, Tower seemed confident enough to take a
chance after we had not been disturbed.

“Enough
for one or two more pieces,” I replied, keeping my voice even lower than his.

“Let’s
eat now then. I’m hungry today.”

I
refused to let the bottle of light leave my hand and picked at my food with my
free one. I was afraid that if I let it go the light may go out.

“Will
we have to replace the gems in the water on the roof soon?” I asked between
bites of food.

“They’re
probably entirely gone by now. We’ll need more of them when it gets colder.
Part of why we’re mining so much is so we have a supply that lasts us
throughout the winter. For food and other things as well. You’ll see.”

“Why
winter? Couldn’t we just come down and get more months from now?”

“We
could,” Tower said, then chewed a piece of pork thoughtfully. He had conjured
up the new platter freshly that morning. “This place is more lively during the
colder months. I don’t know why. You’ve noticed how it’s warm down here, even
though there’s no sunlight? It gets even hotter in the winter months, and I
think it drives the creatures closer to the surface. Again, I don’t know why.
I’ve only explored a few of the tunnels.”

“You
went exploring down here? You’re brave. I wouldn’t do that.”

He
gave a small laugh, keeping his mouth closed to muffle the noise.

“We’ll
see.”

When
the plate was empty I slid it into one of the bags and got back on my feet. I
held the light out and Tower resumed mining. We filled up the second bag
quickly and were an hour or so into the third bag when things began to change.
The strikes of the pickaxe sounded louder. Tower took longer pauses between
each hit and listened to the sound reverberate through the walls like an echo.

I
remember that I turned to look at him before it happened. He was staring
intently at each place that he hit the rock while the rest of his face was
scrunched into a sour expression. It wasn’t exactly enjoyable work but he never
let his distaste for it show on his face. It was almost as if he knew what was
about to happen and loathed that he was unable to stop it.

The
pickaxe struck into the wall a final time and it felt like we had been struck
by lightning. The wall gave in to the blow and fell away from us. For a brief
moment I was able to see the rocks crumble away before part of the ceiling
collapsed and everything went dark. I thought I was blind but I could still see
swirling shadows after rapidly blinking.

The
dust and disintegrated rock clouded my vision. There was a staggering whine in
my head, near my ears, but I could still hear things as if they were coming
from far away. The crashing stones moving furiously after centuries of being
still were chaotic and violent. They grinded angrily against each other as they
fell, but what came after they settled was worse.

There
was a moment of absurd peace and reprieve before the next noise came. It was
enough time that I wiped most of the dust out of my eyes. My right eye was
stinging but my left eye was fine. I kept my soiled eye closed and I peered out
of my good one as the air cleared.

I
couldn’t see Tower. I held up the bottle and shook it, causing more light to
burst out of the water. The dust cleared enough that I could see through it.
There was a hole where Tower had been digging and piles of rock had fallen away
from it. Through the hole I saw hundreds of white objects, glowing in the light
I shined on them.

At
first I didn’t know what I was looking at. I thought it was a different color
of stone, or that the tunnel had opened up into some sort of light filled
cavern. I held the light closer and I felt a tremor run through me when I
finally processed what I was seeing. My knees buckled and I screamed.

They
were spider webs. Layers upon layers of them, thicker than any I had ever seen.
The more I stared at them the more spiders I saw emerging now that the dust
cleared. Each of them looked to be twice as large as my hand and they swarmed
over the webs, cloaking the white silk with their black bodies.

I
took one step backwards and then heard something screech. The spiders reacted
furiously to the sound and bolted away from the opening we had just made into
their home. Even though they moved away from us, every part of my body suddenly
demanded to be scratched. Every itch felt like a little leg on my skin.

Another
screech came and my eyes snapped into the middle of the spider’s nest. I saw
the eyes first. They glistened at the edge of my light like the gemstones in
the walls. Its two front legs came into the light first, each wider than my
arms. Its head came after that and its eyes and mouth seemed to gleam with some
sort of substance that covered its entire body. Below its eyes were two large
fangs that peeled backwards as it let out a third screech at me.

The
single spider was easily larger than all of the others combined. I started to
back away from it and it surged through the gap at me. I heard Tower roar
something behind me but I couldn’t make it out. Blood was coursing through my ears
and made my head pound. I fell backwards and landed on one of the sacks we had
filled with stone.

The
spider was on top of me before I could roll off of the sack. I felt something
from it drip onto my head and chest. It was a viscous substance and made my
clothes stick to my skin. The spider let out another noise, but it was so close
and loud now that I felt it shake through me more than I heard it.

It
reared its head back and I tore away from it. I had no idea which way I was
trying to push myself. I just knew, instinctively, that I had to at least try
to move. Its fangs came down into the bag of rocks the instant after I rolled
out of the way. I collided with one of its legs and its hairs stabbed at my
skin. The spider recoiled back after smashing its own fangs into solid rock and
squealed in pain.

“Bryce!
Get away from it!”

I
scrambled to my feet and stumbled my way down the tunnel. I had lost the bottle
in the fall but I could make out Tower’s figure in the darkness. I huddled
behind him as if he was a wall I could put between myself and the beast.

Tower
stretched his arms out in front of him and shifted his feet apart. He looked
like a man preparing for a fist fight rather than fending off a giant spider.
He opened one hand in the direction of the creature and a beam of light shot at
it. The spider hissed and struck at it, knocking it to the side with one of its
front legs.

It
backed up away from us and Tower tried again. The spider deflected the second
ray of light, snarled, and then climbed backwards up onto the wall. The bulk of
its body covered the cavern opening completely, and its legs stretched out in
all directions along the floor, walls, and ceiling. The white of the spider
webs was gone, hidden by its bulk as it protected its young.

Tower
thrust both arms forward together at once and sent two streams of light at the
spider. They unraveled out of his hands like ropes waving through the air and
made contact with the central mass of the creature. The spider began to howl
but was eerily cut off before it could finish. It seemed to tense up and then
fall forward as a locked up, rigid mass. Its back hit the floor and its body
retained its prior position, as if it were a statue that just toppled over.

Tower
rushed forward and pulled a fistful of gems from his pouch. He let them drop
haphazardly to the floor as he rushed through each one. When he finally found a
clear one he dropped all of the others and placed it in the entrance way.

The
gem began to spread and fill in the gap. I stepped around the body of the giant
spider and watched as it happened. In the cavern I saw the smaller spiders rush
toward us, likely stirred to action when it saw the larger one fall. The
gemstone sealed into the wall just as they reached us, and I made a face as the
spiders clumped over the clear barrier, seeing their furry body parts up close.

In
a few moments we could see nothing of the barrier at all. The spiders covered
and blocked out their side of it and the darkness returned as if hole had never
been made. Tower yanked the bottle of light out from where I dropped it and
shook it. The particles of light within burst to life and lit our section of
the tunnel.

“We
have little time Bryce, and I need to get back down here to seal this wall
properly or we’ll be cutting our way through cobwebs for the rest of our lives.
Scoop what you can into the bags and then help me carry this upstairs.”

We
filled each of the sacks as fast as we could, stuffing chunks of rock into each
one. There was no shortage of pieces of stone and gems that littered the floor
after the cave-in. After the bags were full I grabbed the smallest of all of
them and stood holding it expectantly. Tower looked at me strangely.

“What?
Oh, no. I didn’t mean the bags. Help me carry this,” he stated and pointed to
the body of the spider.

“What?”
I responded. I was so shocked that I dropped the bag. “But it’s dead.”

“No
it isn’t. It’s frozen—ah, suspended, like our food. We’re taking it with us.”

I
looked at the spider, then back at him. I looked at the spider again. I didn’t
know what to say.

“Take
one of the legs. Don’t worry, it can’t hurt you. It can’t do anything right
now.”

The
face I had made at the hundreds of little spiders was back as I grabbed the
closest leg. The spider was far lighter than its size suggested and we were
able to move it, albeit slowly. I tried not to look down at what we were
dragging out of fear that I would scream again.

The
back of the spider scraped along the floor of the tunnel. At times Tower waved
me ahead of us to clear out some of the loose stones and rocks so we had a
clear path to drag it along. Each time I would take the light with me and be
ready to dart back at the sign of anything coming up through the other parts of
the mines.

I
knew that we were almost home when we reached the turn near the cellar
entrance. Tower took over pulling at this point, and told me to run ahead and
make sure the larger of the prison cells was open and ready. When he pulled the
body of the spider in I had the barred door open for him. The caged part of the
room was easily large enough for the monster. Tower pulled it inside and then
locked the door. It stayed rigid and unmoving.

“I’m
going back in to seal that opening. I don’t have time to reapply the ward to
this room. Bryce, listen close now, if that spider starts moving again before
I’m back then that means something happened to me. If it starts moving then you
run. You run up the stairs, straight out the door, and don’t come back.”

He
ran back into the tunnels and I watched his image vanish into the darkness. I
wanted to scream after him that he forgot to take a bottle of light but fire
bloomed to life and illuminated the opening part of the tunnel. Tower was
holding the small humanoid figure of fire in his hand and using that to guide
his way. Both of them pressed on without me and the blackness threatened to
swallow the cellar once more.

It
felt like an entire day passed as I kept glancing back and forth between the
tunnel and the unmoving spider, looking for any sign that would trigger me to
run. I felt like the light was playing tricks on me or that I couldn’t trust my
eyes. The legs of the spider seemed like they twitched every few minutes. It
looked like something shifted in the shadows of the mines. Was the spider
breathing? Did giant spiders even breathe like other animals?

The
sound of the explosion woke me from my paranoia. A blast of air and a wave of
dust crashed into the cellar. I shielded my face uselessly after the fact and
felt the stinging of dust in my eyes. I rubbed them frantically as I stared
through tears to see if the spider was moving after the explosion. Its figure
was blurry but seemed to be still.

Tower
came running out of the darkness, no longer holding the fire to light his way.
He slid into the room and turned into the momentum, springing upright to face
the door. His eyes were shifting wildly as if his mind was racing through more
thoughts than he could keep up. A roar came out of the tunnel with such a force
that it felt like a second explosion had smacked me across the face.

“Fucking
dammit!” he yelled back and marched across the room to where we emptied out the
bags of rocks each day. He grabbed out pieces at random and pelted each of them
into the wall, shattering the weaker ones into a spray of gemstones and rubble.
His hands were a blur as he sorted through them. Another roar, much closer this
time, snapped his attention away for a moment and we both stood staring in its
direction with wide eyes.

He
grabbed a fistful of gems and dived back at the tunnel just as the monster came
slouching in the light. It was the size of a horse but scaly and pale like a
lizard. Its eyes were all milky white and lacked both irises and pupils. Its
legs were enormous piles of muscle, almost too large for the rest of its body,
and it stood tall enough that its head threatened to hit the roof of the
tunnel. Its face had an elongated snout and two tiny holes for nose.