CHAPTER
TWENTY
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE
About twelve yards away, Clay and Satya watched, aghast.
Clay wanted to run to Cass, but there was a gigantic dragon named Rover in the way, and a crazy man was holding on to the dragon’s tail like he was riding a bucking bronco.
“Giddyap!” Schrödinger shouted, now trying to pull himself onto the dragon’s back.
Roaring angrily, the dragon thrashed this way and that. Schrödinger’s legs flew into the air.
“Easy, boy!” he cried, sounding like he was having the time of his life. “Easy!”
The dragon thrashed around for a moment longer and then finally spread its wings and jumped into the air, throwing Schrödinger to the ground. The old cowboy bounced on his butt, clutching his back in pain.
“Ouch,” said Satya, wincing on Schrödinger’s behalf.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Clay said.
They ran to the torn-to-shreds tent, where Cass was standing in a posture that indicated she was very ready to run but very uncertain about which direction to take.
“You okay?” Clay asked her.
“Never better,” said Cass drily. “But I have to admit I’m having second thoughts about flying home on one of those things.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Clay glumly. “They’re not too hot on us riding them, either.”
Cass looked at him. “So no luck, huh?”
He shook his head.
“Let’s go find my dad,” Satya said. “He’ll know what to do.”
“I thought he worked for the Midnight Sun,” said Cass, furrowing her brow.
Satya furrowed her brow in response. “My dad works for the dragons.”
Sure he does, thought Clay. By putting blinders, and ropes, and electric choke collars on them. But he figured it wasn’t the time to argue.
“My dad and I have an emergency plan,” Satya explained as they started running toward the castle. “If something like this goes down, we’re supposed to meet by the fountain. He’ll be waiting there—I know it.”
“And I’m sure he’ll be just thrilled to see you harboring a pair of escaped convicts,” said Cass, with a wry smile.
The castle courtyard was flooded with people running helter-skelter: security guards, butlers, gardeners, cooking staff. Satya led Clay and Cass through the crowd, then stopped short and motioned urgently for them to back away.
Standing next to the fountain was not Vicente but Ms. Mauvais, looking as imperious and unruffled as ever. If there was a storm raging at the Keep, then Ms. Mauvais was the eye of the storm—the calm but deadly powerful center.
“Vicente! Somebody get me Vicente!” she commanded. “Satya! Where is your father?”
“Uh, I’ll go get him!” Satya shouted nervously.
Without waiting to hear more, Satya motioned to the others. They snuck around the periphery of the courtyard, out of sight of Ms. Mauvais, then ran up the steps and into the castle. “He’s probably in the emergency control booth.” She pointed to the Ryū Room. “Through there—c’mon!”
They sprinted across the marble foyer, toward the Ryū Room. But as they passed the glass case containing DragonSlayer, Clay stopped and turned, skidding briefly on the marble. Unbidden, the ridiculous image of Kwan with a butter knife between his teeth had come into Clay’s mind. Always handy to have a weapon on you, right?
“Wait for me!” he shouted at Cass and Satya, and he raced back across the room to the suit of armor that stood by the entrance.
“Sorry, gotta borrow this,” he muttered. He grasped the double-sided ax held in the hollow knight’s metal hand and pulled.* The armor collapsed to the floor, loud clangs lost in the general din. Clay swung the ax, almost dropping it (it was quite heavy). Then he ran lopsidedly back to the display case.
The sword inside looked like it hadn’t been touched since King Arthur’s time. But of course it had been touched, and very recently, too—not to slay dragons but to create them with the ancient blood caked on the blade. Reason enough to take the sword, Clay thought.
Without worrying about who was watching, he raised the ax high in the air, then let it fall. The glass shattered and an alarm went off—yet more noise added to the cacophony.
The sword felt better in his hand than the ax did, which is mostly to say it wasn’t quite as heavy. Clay slashed experimentally through the air once in each direction. He hated the thought that the sword had killed dragons; nonetheless, wielding it was almost, well, fun—or would have been in other circumstances.
“Hey, easy with that, Sir Lancelot!” said Cass. “At least give me the ax if you’re gonna be swinging that sword around.”
As she took the ax from him, there was a huge thundering BOOM! that made them all cry out. The building shook as if there’d been an earthquake.
“In there!” Cass shouted. All three of them lunged for the Ryū Room as another BOOM! rocked the castle.
The Wandsworths were at their table near the bar, playing cards as if there were nothing untoward going on. Two terrified-looking staff members sat opposite them. As one made to get up, Mrs. Wandsworth put her hand on his.
“Tut, tut. You know nobody moves until the game is done.”
Mr. Wandsworth nodded in agreement, then helped himself to a generous pour of mead from the big keg sitting on the bar.
A gigantic ROAR nearly split everyone’s ears.
Clay, Satya, and Cass dove under the closest cocktail table.
Around them, priceless ceramic vases started shattering one by one, as if they were being shot by a sniper. Artwork fell from the walls. Bottles toppled from the bar to the floor, until the bar itself crumpled.
Finally, the shaking stopped. Clay opened one eye, then the other. Cass and Satya were looking around, too.
Just in time to see a column buckle and an entire wall crumble. The room was literally collapsing around them.
“What happened?” Satya whispered.
“It’s like a bomb went off,” said Clay.
Cass crawled out from under the table. “Sturdy little thing, this table.”
Clay and Satya crawled out after Cass and stood up in the rubble. Half of the castle was gone. Where the roof had fallen in, they could see a starry sky.
Not far away, the Wandsworths and their bridge partners were still seated at their table, but they were now covered with dust and plaster.
“That was the best hand I’ve had in ninety years!” Mrs. Wandsworth complained. “What do you mean, the game is forfeit?!”
“Maybe you’d prefer to have a dragon as a partner,” said her husband, pointing.
Everyone turned and stared. Where the marble foyer used to be, Rover was now sitting on a pair of massive hind legs, tongue lolling out, as usual. The dragon looked at them hungrily. If only I had some of that honeycomb now, Clay thought.
“The mead!” he shouted to the Wandsworths. “Give the dragon some mead.”
“What? We will do no such thing,” said Mrs. Wandsworth, offended. “Do you know what happened to my shih tzus when they got into the champagne?”
But Clay wasn’t paying attention; he had grabbed the keg of mead himself and was now dropping it in front of Rover—not too close, of course, but close enough.
“Here, Rover. You’ll like this; it’s made with honey.”
While Rover sniffed curiously, Clay unscrewed the lid of the keg, leaving what for the dragon would be a smallish bowl of mead. Then he hopped away.
Seconds later, the dragon was happily lapping up the mead, as predicted. But all too soon the keg was empty. Rover picked it up and started drunkenly shaking it, hoping for more.
As Clay tried to think of other ways to divert the dragon’s attention, a shadow crossed over the moon and Rover pulled up short.
Rooooooooooaaaaaaawrrrr!!!
It was Rover’s black-and-blue boss, Bluebeard. Responding to some secret signal, Rover started backing away out of the ruins of the castle and into the courtyard. With apparent difficulty, the dragon then spread its wings and jumped into the air, bumping into the dragon fountain on the way, but eventually catching flight.
For a moment all was quiet. Leaving the Wandsworths and their hapless bridge partners behind, Clay, Cass, and Satya gingerly picked their way through the rubble.
The moonlit courtyard appeared to be empty save for the bronze dragons in the fountain, silhouetted against the purple evening sky. Had Bluebeard gone somewhere else? Is that why Rover had been called away?
They stepped cautiously into the courtyard and looked around. Then all three screamed at once.
“Run!”
Bluebeard had not gone away but was merely circling above, waiting to strike. And now the dragon was diving straight for them.
They headed to the jungle for cover, but they weren’t fast enough.
“Aaaayyh!” Cass screamed. A wing talon ripped her sleeve off as Bluebeard flew past her.
“Are you okay?” Clay shouted.
“Yes!” Cass said, but Clay could see blood on her arm. “Where’s Satya?” she asked.
They looked around. The dragon had landed in front of the fountain—separating them from Satya. She was backed up against one of the castle’s few remaining walls.
Bluebeard blew a puff of smoke in Satya’s face, toying with her.
Not fully aware of what he was doing, Clay raised DragonSlayer over his head and barreled toward Bluebeard.
“Get away from her, or deal with this!” he yelled, with what you might fairly call foolish courage.
Bluebeard’s neck craned around, and the dragon looked at Clay. For a moment it seemed like Clay’s words were sinking in. Was it possible that the huge beast was afraid of the little sword? But then Bluebeard let out a scornful roar and swung at Clay. Just in time, Clay squatted down, out of the way, while holding DragonSlayer aloft with both hands.
Bluebeard’s shriek was bloodcurdling.
The dragon thrashed around in pain, then gave another cry and fell on its side, shuddering.
Clay watched in surprise. Had he sliced into Bluebeard’s belly without realizing it? He examined the blade in his hands; there was no blood.
Then Satya pointed—
“I told you he would come.”
Behind Bluebeard stood Vicente, holding a familiar weapon. Clay glanced back at the dragon. A red feather—the end of a tranquilizer dart—poked out of the side of Bluebeard’s belly where the scales were smooth and thin.
“Satya!” Vicente yelled. Satya took off for her father, hugging him tightly.
“That horrid scientist told me they couldn’t breathe fire!” Ms. Mauvais appeared out of nowhere, lit by the glow of the fountain, shouting at no one in particular. “I specifically requested nonflammable dragons!” For the first time, a smudge appeared on her perfect face, and there was even a little rip in her otherwise immaculate dress.
Suddenly, her focus shifted from the unconscious dragon lying on the ground to the other humans in the courtyard.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” she said to Vicente. “Shoot them, too!”
Vicente glared at her. “Satya is my daughter!”
“Cassandra and the boy, then,” responded Ms. Mauvais impatiently. “It’s just a tranquilizer gun—there’s no need for melodrama!”
“I’m out of darts.” Vicente held up the gun as if demonstrating that it was empty.
“Do I have to do everything myself? Don’t let them go.” Scowling, Ms. Mauvais quickly disappeared into the ruins.
“You’re not really out of darts, are you, Dad?” asked Satya.
Clay looked from Bluebeard to Vicente. “Well, I guess you showed Bluebeard who was boss after all.”
“No, it was just a lucky shot,” said Vicente. “We all could have been killed easily. Looks like you were right about the fire-breathing. And maybe about the way I’ve been training them, as well.”
Clay didn’t say anything. He figured it must be hard for a guy like Vicente to admit he was wrong, and Clay didn’t want to push it.
“I’m going to see about getting the dome operational again—you may not like those collars, but right now they’re our only hope,” said Vicente. “You guys stay out of sight.”
As her father ran off, Satya noticed Cass’s arm. It was covered in blood. “What happened? Do we need to do something with that?”
“Probably—I’m losing a lot of blood,” said Cass, her face very pale. Her voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but it was obvious that she was in a great deal of pain.
“Okay,” said Clay, trying hard to remain as calm as Cass was. “What do we do?”
“Can one of you rip off my other sleeve for me?”
Methodically, Cass talked her companions through the making of a tourniquet.
They were just about finished when they heard Ms. Mauvais’s voice: “Don’t move.”
She had returned, this time with Gyorg. He was pointing a gun at them. Not a tranquilizer gun. A machine gun.
Looking like a warrior with her sleeveless shirt and bloody armband, Cass stepped in front of Clay and Satya and addressed her age-old adversary, Antoinette Mauvais.
“Go ahead, kill us. You’ve killed so many—what are a few more?” Cass said, her voice surprisingly strong. “But you’ll never win. You know that, right? Even if you get to the Other Side. Because the one place you can really live forever is the one place where you’ll never find a home.”
“Oh, where is that?” said Ms. Mauvais carelessly.
“In someone else’s heart.”
For a moment Ms. Mauvais just stared at her, and it almost seemed as though Cass’s words had struck a nerve, but the woman quickly recovered. “How long have you been waiting to give that little greeting card of a speech? Gyorg, get rid of them. For good this time.”
Her cold tinkling laugh was soon lost in a deafening ROARRRRR!
Another dragon was entering the fray, but this roar was new and unfamiliar. Unfamiliar to everyone except Clay, that is.
He would have known that roar anywhere.
Bearing down on them, making right for the courtyard in front of the crumbling castle, was Ariella.