before, I had been in Uncle Seb’s plane. We had crept through the swirling pink clouds, dodging glowing tubes and purple tree trunks that slithered up into yet more pastel-hued clouds, wholly focused on getting Dragon rescued. I hadn’t seen the ground. But now, here I was, standing on a foamy, sticky surface. I peered up at what looked like the underside of giant petals.
My neck fell back as I looked, slack-jawed, at the sinewy pink, purple, and blue flora that danced lightly in the breeze. I couldn’t pinpoint where the breeze came from. Each gossamer petal had attached to it a winding vine that crept and crawled through the twinkling soft clouds and ultimately wrapped itself about a thick glass cylinder. The tubes! They were planted, in a sense, and supported by these curling vines.
“Oh, wait! Wait up!” I called. Dragon and Baert were a few paces ahead of me. “How did you walk so quickly in this stuff? I – ooof! Gah!”
I fell forward. My left foot was caught in something. No, it wasn’t caught; it was stuck! The foamy ground, pink and gray and rough like the surface of a scrubbing sponge, was absorbing my weight and pulling me in. Wiry bristles closed over my ankle.
“Guys! Help! Something’s pulling me in!”
Baert twirled around. Dragon, seeing my plight, put his talons impatiently on his hips, which, under different circumstances, would have made me laugh.
“Ye’ve got tah keep movin’, Lassie! Din I feel like a right radge fer not tellin’ ye as mooch,” Baert panted as he put both of his hands around mine and tugged hard. “One more time … oomph! … dinnae blether on … ha!” With a final heave I fell forward onto Baert.
“Sorry, and .. thanks.” I brushed myself off and started moving forward with him again. “Right, keep moving. Man, you are fast for a little guy. What is this stuff?”
“Dinnae ken,” shrugged Baert. “Devil’s skan.” Baert kicked a stray section of green vine. It tensed and coiled. “Unnatural sorts been growin’ here since tha driech yella stone took over with ol’ whats-his-name.”
“Obrenox?” I asked as I skipped after Dragon who was half-flying, half-hopping along ahead.
“Psh,” Baert snorted. “Just an angry radge of a peely wally elf with a chip on his shoulder!”
He spit twice then and threw his hands in the air in some sort of odd ritual.
“Hang on,” I skipped around in front of Baert and jogged side to side, “are you saying Obrenox is an elf?”
“He’s not that kind of elf!” Dragon hollered over his shoulder. “Mind you keep up, thank you!”
“And what might ye mean, ‘that kind ah’elf’?”
“I’ve no time for semantics and histrionics, Cuithbaert. Nor do you. Look!”
We caught up to Dragon who had made his way through the petal forest. His mighty dark frame was dwarfed by a giant and even darker stone door that, even in its gargantuan size, was a mere speck on the mammoth walls that spanned out on either side of it. Above the colossal door grew a fortress so high that its top turret disappeared in the swirling pink gauze and purple mist.
“And I suppose ye want me tah go there,” Baert muttered.
“Is any of this familiar to you, old chum?” Dragon breathed softly to Baert. My pulse quickened. I forgot that Baert’s race had been captured and enslaved here. What do you say to someone like that in a moment like this?
“I wish t’were, honest,” Baert said pathetically. “I dinnae ken much beyond the wee tubes.”
“Never mind,” Dragon spoke louder. “We forge ahead. Now then, how do we open this monstrosity?”
“It’s definitely a door. See? Hinges and door frame and everything,” I said.
“Keen observation, Evechild. But it lacks a doorknob or any sort of handle apparatus. Curious. Baert? Any ideas?”
“Movement, y’balloons!” Baert jumped up and down in front of it, smugly certain it was motion-activated.
It did not budge.
Dragon took a step back, opened his wings dramatically, and pronounced something in Latin at the door.
I think it shut itself even more tightly.
He took another deep breath and flapped his wings. Slowly, then faster, faster. He hovered just above the ground, leaned back, and then shot forward. He crashed into the great door with a thud and a string of words that I think had to be expletives in some ancient language.
“Well, it was worth a try, anyway,” he grumbled dejectedly as he rubbed his head. “I should know better than to think my molecular rearrangement works anywhere besides your Earth dimension, Evechild.”
The door was unmoved.
The little elf pounded his fists against it. Dragon pushed his heft against it. The two of them spread themselves out to hit all four corners of the door simultaneously, Dragon’s wings splayed ridiculously with his talons outstretched to press against three of the four corners while Baert pressed against the fourth (the lower left one, to be exact).
The door gave a little shiver with the slightest flash of yellow. I squinted and examined it more closely. I hated the idea that was brewing in my head.
“Goddammit,” I mumbled under my breath. I had to try.
Swallowing hard, I finally took a step forward. Staring at the door, I raised my hand and thrust my palm toward it. A yellow shimmer fell from the top to the bottom of the door and its mighty stone frame began to toil open.
“Of course. Peridiote controls this keep,” Dragon murmured as he placed a talon on my shoulder. “Well done, Evechild. Well done, indeed.”
I knew I needed to proceed forward, but I felt immobile under the warmth of Dragon’s congratulatory touch. I had no plan. That wasn’t supposed to work. I shouldn’t have this ability; I don’t want this power.
I wondered if the others could hear my heart pounding over the dark fanfare of the stone door grinding open. Dragon’s tail swished anxiously.
“Aye, after ye, lassie,” Baert whispered.
I linked my arm with his.
“Together?”
Dragon grabbed my other arm.
“Together.”
We three stepped inside. The room was humid, dank, and unlit.
I didn’t dare breathe. I just looked. And as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw lit screens, panels, controls maybe, that filled the expanse to my left. Stone walls climbed high beyond the blinking monitors.
The faint kaleidoscopic of sporadic lights was the only movement in the room. That is, if you don’t count my betraying heartbeat. Or … that? Something moved in the looming shadows opposite us. I started forward; Dragon stopped me. His great wing settled in front of me.
“Do not be reckless; remember your people’s old adage, curiosity killed the feline.”
I was too anxious for eye-rolling. I obediently stayed next to him and Baert. Dragon’s black mass blended with the darkness of the room. He walked in front, stopped, arched back dramatically, and let out a biting scream.
“Aaahhhhh!” he roared and twisted violently. “Stop! You must stop there! Aaaaaah! Don’t!”
“Dragon! What happened?!”
“Keep still, lassie,” Baert growled as his eyes flashed red.
But neither of us saw anything.
Dragon screamed again, a low, roaring scream, and stumbled backward. A yellow bolt shot through the blackness and illuminated the room ever so briefly. Another followed, and another, and another. Bright yellow barbs whizzed past us. I ducked and darted toward Dragon’s gyrating body. He roared again as one and then both of his colossal wings were shot through by some otherworldly dart. A sanguine yellow glow clung to his body. The light outlined his accordion wings and throbbed, pulsed eerily. Dragon squirmed and winced.
“Dragon, what is this?” I cried as I ducked below a wing to come face to face with him. “Baert, do something! Dragon, how do we get you out of this—”
Don’t touch it! Dragon’s voice came pathetically, dejectedly, in my mind. I am so foolish. I daresay I … I ought to have seen such an obvious trap coming.
Baert came around to the front of Dragon’s bowed body.
“Drahk! Oh, Drahk.”
Dragon hung his head in shame, in pain.
“Nay, y’didn’t see’t coming, old friend? Yer heid’s too caught up in barry peace. Ye’ve got tah think like thah fighter I once knew, old friend,” Baert whispered. His small hand stroked the bridge of Dragon’s stately nose. “Narry ye worry. I’m here.”
Dragon winced and bowed more deeply. Baert’s hand stayed for a moment; Dragon’s eyes closed. This uniquely tender moment struck me. A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard.
“But what did this?” I said shakily to Baert as I studied Dragon’s glowing stockade.
Not what; who. We have arrived in his inner layer.
A tenor snigger came hissing out of the shadows on the far side of the room.
“Obrenox,” Baert whispered as his wee eyes flashed red.
I turned to see a shape forming from the shadows. It rose higher and laughed louder.
The man who must be Obrenox strode toward me. His dark robes shimmered black with flecks of yellow and swarmed about his legs like snakes, rippling and twisting with every step. He floated more than he walked.
“Let him go!” I barked boldly at the shrouded figure. My fists clenched and my body shook.
He stopped abruptly, seeming to know the exact spot to walk to before the shadows of this odd palatial room ended. He coughed. His silhouette shook a bit as if his spine were resetting itself.
“Or what, may I assssssssk?”
I recoiled, suddenly very aware of my own diminutive size, of my Converse with the frayed laces, of my ankle still wrapped with my sleeve, of the bandage still on my head. I was nothing. I had nothing. And I was squaring off against an unknown enemy in a different dimension while my mom and my sister were who knows where.
Evechild, courage. Strength. Focus … Dragon’s voice came into my mind. I felt ashamed. I took a step backward toward Baert. But as I stepped back, the robed menace stepped forward. A sneakered foot moved into the dim light. (Sneakers? Red ones? That was unexpected.) I frowned and cocked my head, feeling a little thrown.
The robes floated forward. The creepy black snake hems swirled sullenly and covered the red sneakers. I gulped and forced myself to look up. I was ready to behold a mighty visage, a heinous misshapen skull of scars and tattoos, a formidable foe with the head of a gorgon, a grotesque megalord with spikes for teeth and piercings all over. I shuddered.
But what sat atop the hissing jet-black robes with the menacing flecks of yellow wasn’t a gorgon head. Or a misshapen head. Or a fire-breathing studded head. Or even a visible head. What met my gaze was an elegantly folded red hood. A crimson-red hood with a bow at the neck. Not just a neat bow. A dainty bow. A cutesy little-kid bow. I swallowed an unexpected giggle and coughed. Obrenox turned and pointed a long, crooked finger in my direction, hissing.
“And what makessss her laugh ssssssoooo?” he said in a low, scratchy voice. Every s sound crept out of his mouth like air escaping a tire.
I froze. Baert’s tiny hand landed on my back and pushed me forward. I tried to shrug away his touch.
“Ye better speak up, lassie! Aye, ye be the ‘her’ he be referrin’ tah,” Baert half-whispered, half-coughed behind me.
“Um, well …. It’s just that,” I began timidly, quietly, uncertain where to look, talking a step forward.
“Yessssss? Yesssssss?” the hood hissed eagerly. The bright red folds of the red bow shook with his every word and movement.
“Do I have to?” I muttered to no one in particular. I took a deep breath, my brow furrowed.
The hood nodded.
“Well … It’s just that … um, ok. Your hat reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood. Or a kerchief an old lady would wear … It’s lovely. I just didn’t, um, that is … It took me by surprise, I guess? Not something I’d expect to see on, er, um, a villain,” I stuttered guiltily. “Yeah, Little Red Riding Hood. Um … sorry. Your highness.”
The room was silent. Dark. The lights flickering on the wall console made the yellow flecks on the still, black robes twinkle. A faint snort sounded next to me.
“Geesh, lassie, ye coulda lied,” Baert whispered. “Er, or was that yer lie?”
“I am not thisssss! My hood isssss not riding!” the villain barked after much thought. “Itssss red like deathsssssss.”
All at once, Obrenox grew large and threatening, a mighty black cloud filling the space. He loomed above me with his robes trailing downward like snakes slithering down a hill. He should have looked terrifying; I should have been afraid. But all I could focus on was the little knot under his chin, tied delicately in a tight bow. A bow!
“Why the red hood? You have these great robes – yellow is obviously your signature color; I know that now. And black is standard villain garb. But the red hood? It just doesn’t quite —” a harsh cough from Baert cut me short.
I stopped speaking and stepped back in line beside Baert. I could feel my cheeks burning. In that moment, I rued everything about my personality.
Obrenox and his snake robes shrunk back down. He tightened his little red bow fussily and straightened his hood. He folded his arms indignantly and let out a pedantic hmph.
“I like my hoodsssss. And besidessssss,” he sniveled as he tugged on the red loops, “perhapssssss I don’t ssssso much like how my hairsssss were recssssssently cutsssssssss.”
Baert sensed another giggle was going to erupt from my mouth. He tugged sharply at my arm.
“I shall have silencssssssssse!” Obrenox bellowed and stamped his foot on the stone floor. The snake folds of his robes ebbed and flowed with his movement. “Back to busssssssssinesssssss. Who amongsssssst you isssss Eeeeeeve?”
That’s not what I was expecting.
I looked frantically at Baert. He knows my name? The humor of the hood faded. It was replaced with the heavy fact that under that prissy hood was an intergalactic adversary who wanted every species on Earth beholden to him. My stomach flipped and I swallowed hard, a dry painful swallow. The word present squeaked out of my stale mouth like a timid student.
“The spheresaii,” Dragon snarled quietly but fiercely.
I looked up at Dragon. He stared, unblinking, at Obrenox. Dragon’s stoic face masked the pain he undoubtedly felt. His body stayed perfectly still to not disrupt his neon shackles.
Obrenox, meanwhile, searched for something in his robes. His red hood bobbed and his pointy shoulders hunched forward as he rifled through the heavy folds.
“Now where isssssss itssssss.”
It’s just that, in that position, he so very much looked like a tiny old lady searching her handbag for a butterscotch candy. I stifled another giggle. His head shot up.
“Enough of thisssss foolishnesssss,” Obrenox hissed. He grew larger, angrier, and closer. Uncomfortably close. “Behold, your lord and ssssssssavior.” He spread his arms out at his sides, displaying the full majesty of his shimmering robes. A familiar aroma wafted through the air. I sniffed, frowned, and sniffed again.
“Is that… Is that cinnamon?” I asked, ruing the words as they snuck out of my mouth.
Obrenox shrunk back down. His red hood bowed slightly to the side.
“She hassssss a keen nohssssss. Ssssssssinnamon helpsssss my tummy.”
I looked wildly at Baert, and then at pain-stricken Dragon. This was our archenemy? Our evil overlord was a daintily hooded hisser with a fickle tum-tum and a botched haircut?
Don’t underestimate him, Evechild. Strong emotions and a weak mind are a dangerous combination.
“Then who’s the brains of this operation?!” I shot back, forgetting to ask this damning question internally. Dragon glared, exasperated, then winced in pain again.
“I sssssaid enough! I am brainssssss!”.
He screeched and pumped his bony fists at his sides. The robes grew larger. He loomed higher in the air. Inky black smoke poured from under the twisting snakes of his robes.
Evechild! Spheresaii!
Right! I swung the duffle around to my front. My hands shook. I wiped my sweaty palms and finally unzipped it partway. I thrust my hand inside, grabbed one of the small orbs, and held it up.
A pink sphere tittered and fizzled in my hand. I slung it forward; the ball bounded away from my palm and filled the entire room with a pink fog. A cotton-candy cloud fanned out and grew thick and cloying. I couldn’t see anything in its pastel haze; I sputtered and coughed and groped in the miasma for Baert.
“You used the escape haze?” Dragon spat and snorted pathetically. “We’re in an enclosed space!”
“I just used the first one I grabbed!” I wheezed as I squinted in the cotton-candy smoke.
“Then grab another, fer the love o’me, grab another, lassie!”
“Nunc colligentes!” I commanded as I thrusting my hand out to retrieve the pink sphere. It bounded back happily and tucked itself inside the duffle with a squeaky giggle.
“Whatssssssss thissssssss!” Obrenox bellowed. His robe snakes hissed with him. “I don’t likessss thisssssssss!”
I pulled another ball out: the purple sphere glowed white and burned my palm with painful, freezing ice. Perfect!
I stabbed my hand into the dissipating pink fog and set the purple orb loose. It gyrated, paused, and sputtered out a few tiny snowflakes. Then, nothing. The delicate snowflakes rose up, fluttered about, and fell softly over the quiet purple sphere.
Obrenox, who had been holding his red hood scrunched close, dropped his hands and laughed.
“She makesssss me choke and then threatenssssss with thisssss ssssssweeet sssssssnowglobe? How cute it issssss!” Puffs of inky smoke rose from beneath his robes with his laughter.
The snowflakes dissolved and the purple sphere sat very still. It flashed a brilliant purple flash, shivered, and then sent a giant sheet of white snow shooting across the room. I backed up in surprise and crouched under Dragon. Everything was covered in a frosty white blanket.
Obrenox stood still, covered in a layer of fluffy snowflakes. His breathing grew hard, heavy. I could see his nostrils flaring from within his little red hood. He hummed a high-pitch tea-kettle-like hum. Black smoke billowed out from beneath his robes. The snakes at the hem hissed louder.
“This guy’s losing it,” I cried, “Spheresaii, movens frigidio!”
I thrust my hand up toward the icy purple ball. It obeyed! It leapt upward and sprayed the room with ribbons of ice. Snow chunks burst from the little sphere, and then pelting hail exploded out. I heard a popping and sizzling; then came that high, tea-kettle whine again: Obrenox couldn’t handle cold!
Obrenox shrunk, wailing and writhing on the now-icy stone floor. Dragon motioned for me to stay back and winced. I crawled beneath him and pulled my knees into my chest. My arm stayed erect as I commanded the purple shere to keep its powers going. I was freezing. I shivered against Dragon’s warm belly.
“Dragon!” I whispered. “Where’s Baert?”
“Lassie! He’s not done! Dinnae let him fool ye!” Baert’s voice came from behind, sharp and urgent.
I peered around Dragon’s chest. I spotted Baert, small but fierce, crouching under a row of brilliant stones lining the far wall. I gasped as stones and more stones came into focus. For there weren’t just several stones, but hundreds. Thousands, maybe. Rows of brilliantly hued gems – each row organized by color and then shape – filled the palatial wall. Though the only discernible light source came from the flickering controls and computer screens on the opposite side, the stones twinkled and shone all the same. I took a step toward the glittering mosaic.
“Lassie! Turn!”
Baert shot forward in a somersault. I jumped out of his way as he bowled toward Obrenox. The robes had recovered from the cold and strode angrily toward me. The hissing snakes barely touched the ground as they carried him closer, closer. Obrenox shot his arms out at his sides; his scrawny, sinewy wrists held even bonier hands. He snapped, snapped, snapped in time with the snakes’ hissing.
Before I could even wonder what this meant, BAM! Baert somersaulted right into Obrenox. The braunie collided into the black robes, sending their folds angrily gyrating backward. Obrenox tumbled forward, down, back. His shrieks echoed through the stone keep. Baert hopped up and gave the bowled-over enemy a swift kick, then sprinted over to me.
“Lassie, can ye send another sphere,” Baert barked, breathless. Ink began billowing out from Obrenox’s robes. “Aye, now, if y’can!”
I fetched the duffle from beneath Dragon’s tail looped it back over my shoulder. Breathing hard, I extended one arm to call back the tired purple sphere while my right dug through the bag. Time was thick as I groped among the tittering spheres waiting to feel inspired or called upon or stirred to action or something.
“Aye, anytime now, lassie!” Baert’s voice was wild and agitated, bouncing off the dark walls as his little frame sprinted away from ink and snakes around the palatial room.
Obrenox rose. He cracked his cloaked neck side to side. The sound was sickening.
“Now, where wassssss I … ah, yessssssss. Thissssssss girl,” he pointed a gaunt, crooked finger at me again with a snarled giggle, “and her devilssssssssss dwarf.”
Baert popped out from beneath the counter of computers and controls. His tiny eyes blazed red and his small hands tightened into angry fists.
“I … am … not … a … DWARF!” Baert leapt forward, launched into a somersault, and bowled into the slithering snakes. Obrenox side-stepped the braunie. Heaving, snarling, Baert hopped up and launched again.
I pulled a quivering teal orb out of the duffle. It oozed off my palm and landed with a splat on the ground in front of me. I watched, confused. Its slimy puddle glimmered in the dim flickering light. Frost crusted over it, then it became totally frozen. I leaned down to touch the small sheet of ice and then jumped back. A crack formed, small, thin, then longer, thicker. Water beaded at the seam, then began trickling out. Slowly, slowly. Then water burst through and gushed straight up and out like a geyser. If it weren’t for Baert’s frantic screams behind me, I would have drifted into memories of seeing Old Faithful at Yellowstone when I was seven.
“Lassie! Lassie, we’ve got tah get Drahk and fàgail!”
“And what?”
“Skedaddle! Bolt! Scarper!” he waved his arms crazily as he pointed at the geyser and then at my feet.
I looked down. Water swirled around my ankles. From the splatted orb’s crack, water surged upward with no sign of letting up. The flickering lights of the consoles and monitors fizzled and beeped in alarm as the water level rose in the stone room.
“My screensssssss! My robessssssss!”
His body arced spastically and then fell into a cloud of his inky smoke, his arms splayed out like an other-worldly martyr. The smoke caught him, carried him, and carried him higher, higher. He rose above the geyser’s tumult and up to the peaked ceiling.
“What the … Baert! What’s he doing?” I called out as I squinted to make out the dark shape so high above me. No answer. I ignored the water that now covered my knees and squinted hard.
Obrenox reached out a crooked finger. A light sparked; something in the dome’s peak flashed yellow and a jolt of warmth shot through my torso. I winced, feeling an odd sense of familiarity.
“Oh, no,” I muttered. I scanned the waves for Dragon’s guiding face. “Peridiote! Dragon! Peridiote!”
I spotted him. And I screamed.
Dragon’s head bobbed forward. His wings floated limp on the water’s surface. The tip of his mighty tail drifted lifelessly to and fro. Flashes of the yellow bolts that kept him pinned in place shone underwater. Their glow cast an eerie reflection on either side of the inert body.
Baert paddled toward me frantically. He sputtered and coughed and heaved.
“Lassie! Drahk’s bin … he’s bin electro-feed!” he cried.
“Electrocuted?!”
“Yah have tah … yah have tah—” he sobbed into the gushing water.
I dove into the rising water. It only took me five or six strokes to reach him – Dragon floated motionless maybe 20 feet away from me – but my labored swimming made time stand still.
Spitting water, I popped up near Dragon’s bobbing mass. I pulling wet strands of hair from my eyes and reached for Dragon when Baert’s desperate voice stopped me.
“Lassie! Nay, ye can’t touch him!” he gasped. His little head bobbed up and down in the torrent.
Water rose. I don’t know how deep it got, but I knew I couldn’t touch the bottom. I held my arm out for Baert and he gratefully lunged forward and hugged my arm.
“What do we do?” I yelled over the geyser’s roar.
“Ah dinnae ken! But Drahk …!” Baert whimpered between spitting out water. My legs burned from treading water.
“We won’t leave him.”
I looked up. Obrenox lingered high on his inky cloud cackled maniacally. He lay on his side, his head propped up by his fist. He waggled his crooked fingers at me in a mocking wave. Above him, the sinister yellow glow of the peridiote stone flashed tauntingly at me.
Enraged, I thrust my arm upward to control it like I had done with the orb at the park. Just as my open palm began to make the stone shiver and spark, I fell face-first into the water. The weight of Baert on one arm as I extended the other was too much for my treading skills (or lack thereof). I thrashed and resurfaced, coughing and calling for Baert.
His head popped onto the surface again. He gave me a meager thumbs up as he wiped soaked red curls from his eyes and went back to doggy paddling.
Obrenox cackled and clapped gaily.
“I lovesssss thissssss! I do not even hasssss to try to ruin her!” he chortled.
An idea shot into my brain. I looked at Baert, still coughing, still paddling. I looked at Dragon’s bobbing mass. His head nodded limply. I took that as a sign.
“Ok,” I breathed, “Let’s hope this works.”