A long, echoing, quiet moment passed with only the smells of rock dust, peppermint, and Devon’s subtle cologne surrounding me in the dark. It took the full length of that moment to realize the reason it was dark was because I had my eyes squeezed shut.
Since it didn’t feel like I was being crushed under a mountain—just Gerald and really he wasn’t that heavy—I blinked open my eyes.
Before I could fully understand what I was seeing, Gerald was up and jumping around.
“I knew it! I knew it! You’re the one. You’re going to save my world.”
Slowly, I climbed to my feet and edged toward the room behind the rock rubble that had once been the painted door. Dust filtered through the air, in the flickering torch light from the outer chamber. Inside, the light was bright enough I couldn’t see past the rectangular opening. I had to climb over the pile of rocks blocking the entrance, my rainbow splattered shoes starting a rain of smaller pebbles, but was too stunned to think about it.
I’d solved the riddle. I’d done it! Sort of. I had a feeling Gerald helped with his startled yelp of my name. But still. We’d done it. The door was open. How had we…how had I managed that with my complete lack of riddle skills?
Once inside the brightly lit room, my breathing stopped. When my chest started to hurt, I gasped. Breathing again didn’t really help my shock.
In front of me was a gray stone pillar, about waist high on me. The stone was simple but jewel encrusted so it looked like the walls of the cavern. Other than the jewels there was no writing or designs on the side of the pillar that I could see. But on top of it…
On top of the pillar…a sword.
All the light in the room was coming from the sword. Around the glare, I could see it was a beautiful piece of weaponry. The hilt had a red leather grip crisscrossed by silver wire. The guard was a half-moon of intricately woven silver designs. The sword itself glowed green-silver, and what looked to be writing ran along its length.
“Holy cow,” I murmured.
Beside me, Gerald whistled. “Would you look at that? Wonder what you’re supposed to do with that.”
I blinked and turned to face him. He was staring at the sword, so he missed my wide-open mouth and obvious expression of extreme surprise. “Wait. What? You mean I’m supposed to use that thing? Cause, uh, yeah, I’ve never handled a sword in my life.”
I spun to fully face Gerald, ready to launch into another round of “you have definitely got the wrong girl,” when a tapestry on the far wall stopped me and I snapped my mouth shut.
The tapestry was made up of bright, colorful threads in bold colors and showed a scene of a knight standing on the neck of a four-foot-long dragon. The dragon was a thick bodied dragon with two wings, a long tail, raised nostrils, and a sort of blueish green scale color. I looked closer at the knight’s foot, firmly resting on the middle of the dragon’s long neck.
He seemed to be wearing…tennis shoes.
Tennis shoes splattered in a weird array of rainbow colors.
I let my gaze travel up the knight’s silver armor, move higher, along the length of the green silver sword—the real version of which was still lighting the room—all the way up to a very familiar face.
I rubbed my eyes. Didn’t change the image.
“That’s me.” I wanted to shout but somehow it came out a whisper. “You guys don’t expect me to kill a dragon. Right?” My eyes widened as I glanced down at Gerald. “Right?!”
“No, no! See the dragon is still alive.” Gerald pointed to the open eyes and gnashing teeth.
Long teeth. Pointy teeth.
“Are you sure?” My voice squeaked. That was embarrassing but also very appropriate given the situation.
“Yeah,” Gerald said, nodding his head frantically. “Sure. You just need to vanquish the dragon. The wizards didn’t specify killing it.”
Obstacles.
And one of the obstacles was a dragon.
I stared at the tapestry for a long time. How did one go about vanquishing a four-foot dragon without killing it? Stomping on little flower animals trying to eat me was one thing, but I wasn’t sure I was up to the task of vanquishing a dragon—either emotionally or physically.
But I had solved a riddle, hadn’t I? Sort of. If I could solve a riddle, maybe I could vanquish a dragon?
After a few minutes of silent staring, I noticed something strange about the armor I was wearing in the tapestry. It looked…generic. Awkward. Like it could have belonged to anyone. It certainly didn’t fit me well.
An idea slowly seeped in past my numb confusion. And I remembered something Gerald had said when we first met.
“You told me The Man always picks stubborn ones.” I glanced down at Gerald who was very obviously not looking at me. “In the bathroom when I wouldn’t leave with you. What did that mean? How many ‘ones’ have there been?”
Gerald scuffed his feet. I turned on Devon. He focused his attention on his fingernails.
“And you said earlier that you were sure you were right about me being the one this time. This time.” I crossed by arms over my chest as they both continued to look at everything in the room but me. “One of you’d better start talking or the dragon isn’t gonna be the first one to feel that blade.”
Gerald swallowed audibly.
Devon sighed. “Okay. See. All right. Thing is… See… Those future fountains and pictures? They’re pretty…nebulous.”
“Nebulous?”
“Like time,” Devon said.
“The future isn’t set,” Gerald cut in. “That’s the problem. Those future pictures and fountains and stuff? They…change depending on our now.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, staring hard at Gerald while he desperately avoided my gaze. “So you’re saying you could have brought absolutely anyone here, and the fountain we passed would have had their face?” I wasn’t shouting. Yet. But I had that tone. That quiet tone that warned future shouting was eminent.
“No,” Devon said, edging a few steps away from me. “Not quite. When we get it completely wrong, the statues show birds or something.” He looked around the room like he was hunting for an escape route. Smart man. “That’s when we know to just return to woman to her home.”
“So,” I said, slowly. “You’ve been prowling bars.” I poked at Devon who took another step backward. “Looking for potential world-savers. And you—” I spun to face Gerald who’d also been creeping back away from me. He froze when I glared at him. “You have been kidnapping these women and bringing them here. And any one of them could have been your savior?”
“No.” Gerald spoke with such absolute certainty.
“No what?” I asked, my voice low.
“No, none of the others could have been the savior.”
“Why not?”
“None of them solved the riddle.”
“What?”
“None of the others solved the riddle. Not right anyway. Some got into this room. But the sword wasn’t here for any of them. And the tapestry showed a completely different scene to the dragon scene.”
“The sword wasn’t here? How could it not be here?”
“We don’t know.” Devon edged closer again, though he still looked ready to bolt if my temper rose. “This is the first time, in all the years I’ve been searching, that I’ve seen the sword. I was told only the savior of this world would be able to open the door and see the sword.”
“So you see,” Gerald said. “You are the one who will save my world.” He puffed up his chest, giving me a smug look. “I never doubted it. Not from the beginning.”
“Yes you did.” But there wasn’t any heat in my voice. I blinked at the tapestry again. “So… I really am supposed to save your world from all these wizardly obstacles?” It still didn’t sound right. Still didn’t sound like something I was destined for.
But, apparently, the magic sword and doorway thought differently.
“’Fraid so,” Devon said. He reached out and touched my hand, a brief but comforting gesture.
I surprised myself by not pulling away. He did really smell good. “Okay then.” I nodded and glanced around the chamber, lit a pale green by the glowing sword. Jewels embedded in the dark rock winked in the sword light, casting little rainbows around the room. “So… What do I do now? If I’m really supposed to do this, where do I start?”
“The dragon,” Devon said. He moved to one side, leaving a clear path between the sword and me. “You have to choose this, Sophie. You have to take up the sword.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to be the savior of Gerald’s world. I didn’t want to be here at all.
Did I?
Would I rather go back behind the bar, instead? Going nowhere, doing nothing?
Waiting for something to happen?
I spread my days between work, a few friends, my mom, and magazines. I didn’t actually know where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do besides tend bar. Even that was starting to get old.
The sword’s green-white light brightened and sent another wash of rainbows jumping around the room.
I stared at the sword. “How many obstacles are there?”
“About twenty,” Gerald said.
“Will I be home in time to call my mom?”
“I promised you would be. You will. I’ll take you back and bring you here again as often as you need to. Shorter route this time. So long as you don’t delay us again.”
I looked down into Gerald’s perfectly ordinary brown eyes in his very unordinary green face and thought, I don’t want his world to be run by wizards. I don’t want them to enslave the Heezgnomes.
And I could stop it.
Did I believe their story? They’d lied to me… Well, no, technically, they’d just left selective things out earlier. But they hadn’t been completely honest with me. Maybe the wizards weren’t so bad? Maybe that four-foot dragon was just misunderstood?
Maybe I’d gone mad a few hours earlier.
An echo of footsteps sounded down the corridor and a faint scent of sulfur wafted through the doorway. “Don’t tell me,” I said. “That’s the dragon.”
Devon and Gerald’s eyes widened at the sound. A dead giveaway.
“So what’s it going to be, Sophie?” Gerald asked, his gaze locking with mine. “Will you help us?”
“Do I trust you, Gerald?”
“No. But will you help us?”
His honest answer made me smile. “I still think you’ve got the wrong person.”
He smiled back. “That’s because you’re stubborn.”
The steps sounded closer. The scent of sulfur got stronger. The floor shivered and dust filtered down from the stalactite-free ceiling.
I crossed back to the sword and took hold of the hilt. To my surprise, I lifted it with ease. After a few practice swings, which I considered pretty decent considering I’d never held a sword before, I turned to my about-to-be-recruited-assistant-world-saviors and said, “Shall we go see how to vanquish a dragon?”
As it turned out, vanquishing a dragon wasn’t as hard as it sounded. The dragon’s name is Margaret. We posed for the tapestry on my next visit.