We Sled With Dragons (9 page)

THE ENTRANCE TO
the research station was a mouth in the ice, an open tunnel supported by steel beams. Normally, Celia and Oliver would not have wanted to rush into a dark tunnel carved out of solid ice. As far as their rules went, there were certain to be unpleasant surprises in store for them, but in this case, it should be noted that they were the first inside, running through the ice and blustery wind for the promise of warmth. Celia didn't even make Oliver go first, although this time he wouldn't have minded.

Inside, the air hummed with the sound of machinery. The tunnel was carved directly in the permafrost, which was the layer of ground that was always frozen, even in the summer. There was a metal walkway down the middle where they walked, with lights hanging over it every few feet, but no railings. The walls had streaks of ice running through them, like layers of icing inside a cake. They could see a large steel door ahead that led deeper into the tunnel and there was an intercom box next to the door.

“Cozy,” grumbled Celia.

“Why do they need such a heavy door?” Oliver wondered.

“Wouldn't want polar bears dropping in for a visit,” their father said.

“And there are much older dangers than polar bears in the frozen realms of the north,” their mother added.

“Why'd she have to say realms?” Oliver muttered. “It makes it sound so . . .”

“Enigmatic?” said Celia.

“Is that like mysterious?”

Celia nodded.

“Then, yeah. Enigmatic. She could have just said ‘places' or something.”

“She's an explorer,” said Celia. As if that explained everything.

“That hum,” said Oliver. “That sounds like air conditioning.”

“It is,” their mother said.

“What?” Celia wondered. “Who would turn on the air conditioning in a freezing cave?”

“If it gets too warm down here, the ice will melt and the ground will be too heavy. The tunnel would collapse, crushing the research station,” their mother said.

“Oh,” said Celia, pulling her parachute robe tighter around herself. She wiggled her toes and was happy to note that she could still feel them.

Dr. Navel hit the buzzer.

Nothing happened.

He hit it again.

No answer.

“Where is he?” Dr. Navel shook his head. “The researcher never leaves his post up here.”

Oliver pushed on the big steel door and it creaked slowly open.

“Of course,” he groaned. “Now I bet there will be something creepy on the other side.”

“Why don't you go find out?” Celia suggested.

“Why do I have to go first?”

“I'm older,” said Celia. “And anyway, that's your catchphrase.” She shoved him through the door.

“Gah!” he screamed.

His sister and his parents rushed in after him to see Oliver crouched on the floor beneath a saber-toothed tiger.

“It's not alive, stupid.” Celia shook her head. The tiger was half embedded in the ice of the wall and half dug out, so it looked like it was leaping. “It's, like, a fossil or something.”

“I know that,” said Oliver, standing up again.

“It's a perfectly preserved specimen,” said Dr. Navel. “The saber-toothed tiger has been extinct for over ten thousand years. Who knows how long this one has been preserved in the permafrost?”

“Thirty-two thousand years,” said Celia. She pointed to an information card next to it. “They're calling it a smilodon.”

“That's from the ancient Greek for ‘smile' and ‘knife,'” their mother said.

“Knife smile,” said Oliver with a gulp. “Nope, not creepy at all.”

“Don't worry,” Celia smirked. “I'll protect you from the extinct animals.”

He stuck his tongue out at her.

“Come on,” their mother called, and they continued into the cave. Dr. Navel stayed behind to study the smilodon in the ice.

“Extraordinary.” He practically shoved his face into the creature's mouth. The twins imagined it must smell a lot like Sir Edmund's breath.

Farther down in the cave, where the air was warmer and the hum of the air conditioner even louder, their mother stopped in front of a row of bones sticking out of the wall. Each was about the size of a dinner plate. She pointed proudly at them.

“Look at this!” She smiled.

“It's bones,” said Oliver.

“You know, guys,” their mother said. “You can't just be couch potatoes forever.”

“We're not couch potatoes,” said Oliver.

“We're audiovisual enthusiasts,” Celia corrected her mother.

“And I guess bones are cool,” said Oliver.

His mother smiled. “These are dinosaur bones.”

Oliver stepped closer.

“They are a hundred and fifty million years old,” she added. “And they belong to the largest sea monster ever to have lived, the pliosaur. Some call it the Tyrannosaurus rex of the ocean. These bones here are just the vertebrae from the spine. Look.”

She rushed deeper down into the cave and Oliver followed right behind her. The row of bones that made up the spine blossomed into a rib cage bigger than their living room at home, then long flippers that were taller than their mother, and then to a skull that was ten feet long with teeth the size of Oliver's arms.

“It is the largest and most complete reptile fossil ever found,” Claire told her kids. “These were fierce hunters of the deep—sea dragons. This one sank into the mud when he died and was perfectly preserved. Look at the claws. This one was probably amphibious.”

“That means he could go on land too,” said Celia.

“I know what amphibious means,” said Oliver. “Like a frog.”

“Imagine when these dragons filled the oceans and wandered the earth.” Their mother sighed, delighted.

“I'd rather not,” said Oliver, who liked giant lizards even less than regular lizards, even if this giant lizard happened to be extinct.

“How do you know so much about this place?” wondered Celia.

“This is where your father and I met.” Her mother smiled. “We were both doing research here and we fell in love digging for Viking gold. All we found were dragon bones,” she sighed, “and each other.”

“Ew,” said Oliver. Imagining his parents being romantic was worse than getting eaten by a pliosaur.

“It's such a romantic place,” she continued. “In the myths, dragons love gold, they can smell it, and we thought maybe the myths were based on these dragons. We could have stayed here searching for a long time.”

“Why'd you leave?” Oliver wondered.

“You two were coming along.” Their mother smiled. “But I always believed I'd be back. There's so much wonder here. So much unknown. The deeper explorers dig in the ice, the more remarkable species we find.” She was almost breathless with excitement. “In Tibet they have discovered mammoth rhinoceroses, and here, a dragon.”

“Mom,” said Celia. “How is all this going to help us find Atlantis?”

“Well, I had hoped to discuss that with the researcher here, but the place seems to be empty.”

“That's not a good sign,” said Oliver.

“Where's Dad?” asked Celia.

“Oh, I'm sure he's just studying that fossil,” said Claire. “Oggie? Ogden!”

“Oh no,” said Oliver.

“Not good,” said Celia.

“What's wrong?” Their mother turned back to them.

“We're in trouble,” said Oliver.

“What do you mean?”

“It's about his rules,” said Celia.

“They're not
my
rules,” said Oliver. “They're just, like,
the
rules. Watch any movie. If you're in a creepy place and you call somebody's name and he doesn't come, well, you know something terrible is about to happen.”

Their mother looked doubtful.

“He's right,” said Celia. “This is always when something terrible happens.”

“I'm sure your father just has his head stuck in the saber-toothed tiger's mouth,” their mother said. “We're perfectly safe down here.”

“See?” said Oliver. “Someone always says that too.”

“Oggie?” their mother called again, worry starting to etch lines on her forehead.

“I'm here!” he called, coming slowly toward them.

“See?” said their mother. “Everything is fine.”

“Not exactly,” said another voice from behind their father. That's when their father stepped into view, his hands held high in the air. Behind him walked a woman in a white snowsuit and white wool cap. She had a snarl on her face and a pistol in her hand.

“Janice,” whispered Celia.

“See?” whispered Oliver. He really hated being right about this sort of thing. Like all their enemies, from Ernest the celebrity impersonator to commercial breaks during their favorite shows, Janice McDermott—grave robber, thief, and mercenary—had a way of coming back over and over again.

SIR EDMUND'S PHONE
rang. He let it ring while he studied the ancient map in front of him, the strange continents, the old Greek writing, the illustration of the dragon. He twirled his mustache and daydreamed about Atlantis.

The phone stopped ringing.

He looked up from the map to the portraits on his wall, heavy oil paintings of great leaders of the Council who came before him: Napoleon and Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Francisco Pizarro. Their grim visages looked down at him.

He smirked, because he would outdo them all.

The phone rang again and this time he answered.

“Tell me you have them,” he said into the receiver without saying hello. We should not be surprised that a villain set on world domination would not place a high value on telephone manners.

He listened quietly for the answer to his question. His smile grew broader and broader as he heard Janice speak. When she was done, he did not answer immediately. Janice McDermott was a talented mercenary, which meant she sold her cruel set of skills—like grave robbing, thieving, and murdering—to whoever could pay her the most, and right now, Sir Edmund was paying her a lot. She was his employee and she could wait for his reply. Again, poor phone manners.

“You there? Hello?” Janice said. “Can you hear me now? I said that the Navels came here, just like you said they would. They've got no animals to help them out, no friends lurking in the shadows. They're all together and they're all under my control.”

“I heard you,” Sir Edmund said, standing up and resting his hand on the ancient rune stone of Nidhogg the dragon, which he now kept behind his desk. He couldn't read a word of the ancient language of the runes, but he liked to run his hand over it and know that it was priceless and that it was his.

One day, he believed, there would be monuments like this dedicated to Sir Edmund S. Titheltorpe-Schmidt III. Small though he was in height, he was grand in accomplishment. Now was the moment to complete his plans. Now was the moment to reach Atlantis and to claim the Lost Library. Now the world would be his to—

“Hello? Hello?” Janice's voice crackled over the phone line, cutting off his reverie.

Sir Edmund set the receiver down on the desk. He pressed a few buttons on his desk and the picture of Genghis Khan slid aside to reveal a screen with a picture of a Viking map of the north. The area of the North Pole was almost as unknown now as it was then, a frozen patch of ocean haunted by ghost-white polar bears and fields of treacherous ice. In Viking times, the only label for the upper reaches of the ice of the north was Asgard, the city of the gods at the top of a rainbow bridge. He zoomed in. He saw an illustration of a dragon, just like the one on Plato's map. The clues were all falling into place.

He pressed a button and the portrait of Gen-ghis Khan slid back into place. He picked the phone up again.

“Edmund?” Janice was shouting. “Are you still there? Edmund?”

“It's
Sir
Edmund,” he said. “Now quit shouting.”

“What do you want me to do?” Janice said, her voice heavy with impatience.

“I'm on my way north. Keep them there. I have a delightful surprise.”

He hung up the phone and set his palms flat on his desk, taking a deep breath and trying to keep from getting too excited. He wanted to squeal with glee, which would not suit a villain of his cunning and power.

Instead, he exhaled slowly.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number. When a gruff voice on the other end answered, Sir Edmund did not offer a greeting. “Tell the rest of the Council that the Navels fell into our trap and success is within our reach.”

“It better be,” said the voice. “Or you're finished. Their patience has worn out.”

“Oh, don't go sweating through your little baseball cap. I know you want to take over the Council. I'm sorry to disappoint you.”

“We'll see,” the man on the phone said.

Sir Edmund wanted to stick his tongue out and make barfing sounds, which also would not suit a villain of his cunning and power and perhaps would not have been very effective over the phone. Instead, he grunted and hung up.

He ran his fingers over the ancient map once more.

He would head off to Svalbard himself to claim his ultimate glory.

And, of course, get rid of the Navel family forever.