Fighting with fire

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After a good meal, a good bath and a good night’s sleep on board his ship, Lex felt one hundred times better. His headache had gone entirely by the next morning and Heetha’s horrible sun had been replaced with Saydi’s. As Goddess of Beauty, her sun always brought the loveliest? not to mention the most comfortable? weather on the Globe.

Lex had the sword; he had triumphed against the odds and he had even managed to rescue his companion from certain death, as well. Now, finally, the third and final round was to start today and already Lex felt that he couldn’t wait. He and Jesse were back on speaking terms? mostly because Lex found he couldn’t overly resent Jesse for taking the sword, when it was exactly what Lex would have done himself. He respected Jesse more for being a man who was entirely, unashamedly, out for himself, than he would have done if he’d been some charitable, do-gooder sap. Besides, just because he didn’t trust Jesse, didn’t mean that he didn’t like him.

‘You’re not entirely useless,’ Lex said generously. ‘Which is a step up from my last companion, at least.’

Of course, spending half the night gloating over the Sword of Life had improved Lex’s mood immeasurably. Just as the legend went, the red blade was hot to the touch whilst the blue blade was icy cold. The red blade took life; the blue blade gave it back. Lex couldn’t help thinking that it would be a dodgy weapon to take on to the battlefield though. After all, if some twit happened to get the blades mixed up then they could actually give years back to their opponent, rather than killing them dead, which would be rather an unfortunate mistake to make in a fight.

Lex didn’t know when he would use it or how. But? one day? he would need more life. And then, somehow, he would find the courage to stab himself with that blue blade. He had no way of knowing how much life was stored up within the sword, although the stories said it was a hundred years or more. Lex would take whatever he could get. He was an adventurer, after all. And living life was what Lex was all about. It would be frightening? plunging that cool, blue blade into his chest. But Lex was no coward. And there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do to wring more experiences and adventures out of this world before he finally croaked it.

But, for now, he stowed the sword away in his bag. It was another benefit of the enchanter’s magical bag that it seemed able to contain objects completely. Bottles of water could be spilt without so much as a drop of liquid seeping through. By the same measure, it seemed that sharp objects could not penetrate the fabric. Lex was therefore able to carry the sword about with him without any danger of accidentally impaling himself with it during the course of the Game. This was a particular advantage where this sword was concerned since, the fact that it had two blades stretching out in opposite directions, with the handle in the middle, made attempting to sheath it at your belt without cutting yourself rather difficult.

The players gathered, as per Lady Luck’s instructions, on a dusty track just outside Dry Gulch the next morning. They were reduced in number, of course, for Lorella was gone, leaving only the little sprite to play in her place. Possibly that explained the sulky, resentful expression on Thaddeus’s face. Lex had to wonder why the Gods bothered playing at all when they always got into such strops as soon as they started to lose.

As in the previous Game, the players’ points were wiped clean for the third round so that any of them might have a chance of winning. The advantage of the points he’d already earned, however, meant that Lex would get to start the third round before the other players. Flushed with confidence from his victories at Dry Gulch? both obtaining the sword and rescuing Jesse? Lex didn’t really see how he could possibly not win the next round, especially as he was to get a head start. He was positively itching to find out what the third round was to entail so that he could set his mind immediately to the task of winning the Game and triumphing over Jeremiah.

‘The third and final round,’ Lady Luck said with a smile, ‘is to take place in the Gold-Dust Mines.’

The players fairly goggled at her. There had been a great gold rush about a hundred years ago at the Gold-Dust Mines. It was believed that they were amongst the richest? if not the richest? ever to be discovered. Profiteers and entrepreneurs had fled to Dry Gulch hoping to make their fortunes. But? sadly? it appeared that gold was not the only thing down in the mines. There was a ferocious, vicious dragon down there, as well. It had been the last of its kind one hundred years ago. The others had long since died out. Although dragons generally regarded humans as walking snacks, this one was particularly aggressive. It didn’t just kill when it was hungry, but all the time in between as well. It hated everyone and everything and was fiercely possessive of its home. Many believed it to be dead now, but no one dared enter the mines, just in case the fearsome beast still lived. For this dragon was sadistic. It did not simply bite your head off, but ripped out your insides whilst you were still alive and had a little play with your intestines before it finally ate you. No one wanted to die that way.

Several people had tried to slay the beast before. Large, muscled heroes and mercenaries had been brought in to see if they could rid the mines of the scaly menace. But all had failed: chewed up and spat out, armour and all. And so the mines had finally been forced to board up and close down entirely. Too many miners had been killed and there was a little gaggle of widows wailing outside the entrance seven days a week by then. So the place was shut and everyone agreed that it would not be reopened until they could be absolutely sure that the dragon was dead.

The problem, though, was that dragons were known for their longevity and so it might very well still be down there, even though a hundred years had passed.

‘Is the dragon dead, then?’ Jeremiah asked.

‘I hope not,’ Lady Luck replied. ‘It’s the subject of the third round. First player to drive a blade into its heart, wins.’

The sprite looked utterly crestfallen by this, which was to be expected seeing as she was about the size of a thumb and therefore would not be able to wield any blade larger than a toothpick. Jeremiah, on the other hand, looked extremely pleased. No doubt, this was the sort of round that suited him perfectly. After all, it would not require much brainpower to slaughter the dragon? just a strong arm and a complete disregard for the sanctity of life. Having been privately and expensively educated in a posh academy, Jeremiah had probably spent more time out in the forest hunting small, defenceless animals, than he had in the classroom learning how to read and write. History, maths, science, philosophy and all those other academic subjects were probably rather pointless to a member of the aristocracy who was only going to sit around, bossing people about once they were grown up, anyway.

Lex, on the other hand, was not happy about the third round. He was not happy at all. He was an adventurer. He loved exploring new places and doing never-done-before things. He did not kill stuff. He’d never killed anything before in his life? not even on the farm. Lex did not care for blood and gore and death. Those things weren’t fun at all. All right, so the dragon was a terrorising, murderous, blood-maddened beast but, skulking down there in the mines, it was not doing anyone any harm now. Lex tried to tell himself that this was no different from the first round in the last Game where he had defeated a minotaur and a medusa by turning them into stone. They may not technically have been dead, but life as a lump of rock couldn’t really be all that great. Still, this round left a bad taste in his mouth and he found himself extremely annoyed with Lady Luck for devising it. She knew full well that Lex was no warrior, so how the heck did she expect him to win this thing? OK, so he had a head start and a magic sword, but this was not the sort of task that Lex excelled at. Winning this round did not require cleverness, it merely required strength. Any old fool could weight-lift. Lady Luck really ought to have known better, but that was the price you occasionally had to pay for having the most dim-witted deity out there.

‘This is a stupid round,’ Lex said bluntly. He knew it wouldn’t make any difference, but he felt the pressing need to express his displeasure, anyway.

‘It’s hardly that,’ Lady Luck replied. ‘Slaying a dragon is the ultimate mark of a true hero. The player who pulls this off will have people talking about him for decades.’

Big deal, Lex thought. So what if a lot of silly people gushed about you long after you were dead? But there was nothing for it. If he wanted to win the round then he would have to kill the dragon. And, once Lex started something, he would do anything to finish first. If he came second then, really, he might as well kill himself and have done with it, for he would only die of shame and self-loathing later on, anyway.

‘You are twenty points in the lead, Lex,’ Lady Luck said. ‘So you have earned yourself a twenty-minute head start. Jeremiah will then follow. And Lorella’s companion, Mab, will go twenty minutes after that. Good luck.’

And, with that, Lex and the other players disappeared from the dusty path and found themselves standing directly outside the boarded-up Gold-Dust Mines.

Lex lost no time, but started forwards at once, pausing only to glance back and smirk at Jeremiah over his shoulder. It was clear that the nobleman loathed having to stand there for a full twenty minutes whilst Lex got started on the round. The boards had been removed from the entrance, presumably for the purposes of the Game. Lex didn’t hesitate, but walked straight through with Jesse close behind him.

‘No one said nothin’ about any dragon-slaying,’ the cowboy grunted.

‘What’s the matter?’ Lex replied. ‘You’re not scared of the dragon, are you?’

‘You’re damned right, I’m scared of it! That thing’s responsible for the deaths of hordes of men! What makes you think we have any chance of killing it when so many others have failed before us?’

‘We’ll do it,’ Lex replied, ‘because that dragon is all that stands between me and winning this Game.’

‘Well, I think it’s a right shame,’ Jesse replied. ‘It ain’t doing no harm down here now. We oughta just leave it be.’

‘You can leave it be if you like,’ Lex replied, ‘but I plan on winning this thing. Besides,’ he added, ‘if I die during the third round then there’s no guarantee that Lady Luck will give you those pearls. She can be sulky like that.’

Jesse grunted again, but kept pace with Lex as they moved deeper into the mines. They were dark and wet and damp. They didn’t smell too good, either. Water dripped from the rocky walls, giving the place a sort of mildewy scent. The general consensus seemed to be that the dragon had been sleeping for several months after the mine first started being built, and things were trouble free during that time. After that, something the miners did, woke the dragon up and that was when the killings began. The mine was, therefore, unfinished. They had only had time to lay some of the paths and railway tracks, and to dig some of the shafts, before they had been forced to close down. When they finally decided to abandon the place, everything was left exactly where it was. Lex and Jesse passed several large piles of picks and shovels as they walked in.

When they were only a few feet from the entrance they had to stop. It was too dark to proceed any further, and it certainly didn’t take a genius to work out that wandering around an abandoned mine without light was not a good idea. Never mind the danger posed by the dragon, they could fall down an uncovered shaft, or have a ceiling fall down on them, or anything.

‘Don’t even think about lighting a torch,’ Jesse said.

Lex rolled his eyes. ‘I know that,’ he replied.

Lighting any kind of match down there would not be a good idea at all seeing as they didn’t know what gases may be present. They would need some other source of illumination but, fortunately, Lex had just the thing in his bag. The enchanter’s bag was huge inside but Lex could usually find the things he’d put in there himself without too much difficulty? perhaps because they were near the top. Every now and then, however, rummaging around he would discover something he’d never seen before. Last night on the ship he had had a good old rummage and found a caged glow-canary. The yellow bird shone like a beacon and had traditionally been used in mining because it could detect the presence of gold. When it came within ten metres of the stuff, its glow changed from white to yellow.

No one entirely understood glow-canaries, for it seemed that they did not need food and water in the same way most species did. Indeed, they periodically seemed to go into a state of hibernation, and would only come ‘alive’ when someone woke them up again. There were several ways of achieving this. Saying ‘wake up’ in a loud voice usually did the trick. Poking also worked. Lex had owned the enchanter’s bag for several months now and he had never come across the canary before. But once Lex woke it up, the little bird seemed quite happy, stood on its little perch and cocking its head this way and that in an alert, curious manner.

If it had been any other bird that had been in the bag without access to food and water for all those months, Lex would have discovered a dead, rotting corpse in its place but, as it was a glow-canary, it was alive and well, and now it was going to come in extremely handy.

Lex took the cage out and, instantly, pure white light shone all about them, illuminating their way perfectly.

‘What else you got in that bag?’ Jesse asked, staring.

The truth was that there could be any number of things left by the enchanter in there but, because it was Jesse asking, Lex shrugged and said, ‘Nothing of any value.’

They moved on. The narrow path that was cut into the rock led downwards. When they got to a certain point, it branched out in three directions. Lex chose the middle one because he had a feeling about it? and when you’re a person who’s as lucky as Lex, you never ignore your gut feelings.

They walked for some time through a twisty, turny corridor. It was an adrenaline-pumping walk, going deeper and deeper into the mines when they knew that somewhere in there lurked a terrible, ferocious, murderous monster. Lex wasn’t over keen on monsters because they tended to eat first and ask questions later. You couldn’t really scam a monster. Or talk it out of killing you. Or trick it into killing itself, instead. Lex, therefore, vastly preferred humans, for his silver tongue was not wasted on them. Still, he did experience something of a thrill in going into a highly dangerous mine that no one had been inside for more than a hundred years.

So far, though, the only odd thing Lex had noticed were the holes in the ground. They didn’t look like they had appeared there naturally and yet they obviously weren’t anything to do with mining. Lex decided there must be moles down there, and thought nothing more of it.

Until a rabbit popped its head up. On first appearances it was a perfectly ordinary white rabbit, but something about the look in its pink eyes stopped Lex dead in his tracks. He recognised that look. He had seen it before, back on the enchanted ship. And he had seen it later on at the farm, just before the crazy animal burnt the barn down. It was a mad, rabid, evil look that you weren’t likely to forget in a hurry.

‘Shit,’ Lex breathed. ‘I think that’s a-’

But before he could even finish the sentence, the rabbit opened its mouth and shot a plume of fire at them. Lex and Jesse both jumped back but, before the rabbit could emerge all the way out of its warren, Jesse drew his pistol and shot at it. He missed, but the sound was enough to send the rabbit back down into the hole.

‘Jeepers, I hate those fire-bunnies,’ the cowboy said.

‘You’ve seen them before?’ Lex asked.

‘You get ’em out in the desert sometimes. Nasty little buggers they are. Dying out now, thank the Gods. Ain’t seen one in years.’

‘Let’s hope there aren’t too many more of them,’ Lex said as they went on. He knew from past experience just how much damage one fire-breathing rabbit could do and he did not fancy being stuck down here with one, let alone more.

‘Are they carnivorous?’ Lex asked, remembering that first time he’d come across one on the enchanter’s boat and it had tried to chew through his boot.

‘Oh yeah,’ Jesse replied. ‘They’d gladly make a feast of you if you let ’em.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Lex said, a horrible, terrible, awful suspicion suddenly occurring to him. ‘What if… What if there isn’t any dragon?’

‘What makes you say that?’ Jesse asked, frowning. ‘It killed all those men, didn’t it?’

‘Did it? No one ever saw the attacks, did they? They only found the charred bodies later.’

‘Yeah, but… those bodies were blackened to a crisp. Half eaten most of the time, too. No way one little bunny could do that, even if it could breathe fire.’

‘Not one perhaps,’ Lex replied. ‘But if there was a pack of them..’

‘But the fire-bunnies are dyin’ out,’ Jesse said, starting to sound a little desperate. ‘Everyone says so. Besides, other miners reported havin’ seen the dragon.’

‘Well, of course they did,’ Lex replied dismissively. ‘Down here in the mines, getting increasingly scared, with more and more people dying, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a man among them who wasn’t convinced he’d seen the dragon at some point. Who knows? perhaps a few of them really did catch a glimpse of one of the fire-bunnies. They would probably have been genuinely sure that it was a dragon they’d seen. Besides, if miners were being attacked in the tunnels whilst they worked then how would a dragon even fit into those narrow corridors? How would it be able to move around the mine at all?’

‘Some of the descriptions are quite detailed though,’ Jesse pointed out? although he sounded anything but certain.

‘But none of them match,’ Lex muttered. ‘Although I suppose it would’ve been dark down here and they would have legged it as soon as they saw anything. Hopefully, there are fire-breathing rabbits and a dragon down here.’ That sounded odd, given the circumstances, so Lex added, ‘Well… you know what I mean.’

‘I sure do,’ Jesse replied. ‘I don’t much fancy wanderin’ round this old mine looking for a dragon that don’t even exist, and maybe never did.’

‘You and me both,’ Lex grunted.

The problem, though, was that sending players down to an abandoned mine to slay a dragon that wasn’t real sounded exactly like the sort of stupid thing Lady Luck would do. Lex couldn’t help wondering what would happen to the Game if that was the case. How would they decide the winner if the third round was one that couldn’t possibly be won?

After about twenty minutes of navigating their way through the corridor, Lex was starting to worry that it didn’t lead anywhere useful at all. The mine was unfinished? for all they knew, this corridor would suddenly come to a dead end.

But then they came out into the cavern.

As previously stated, there is more than one way to wake up a glow-canary. Shouting and poking will do the trick. But another thing that works like a charm is to bring a glow-canary that’s already awake into close proximity with sleeping ones. Something about the light the awake one sheds will rouse the sleeping ones within seconds.

Jesse and Lex, therefore, had to shield their eyes because, after a good half hour spent wandering the dark mine, they were not prepared for the bright light of three hundred or more glow-canaries. The cages hung from the cavernous ceiling far above them and the light illuminated one of the largest rooms Lex had ever seen in his life. It was massive? and it was only because there were so very many glow-canaries that they were up to the task of illuminating it at all.

The room contained a railway track. Or, at least, the hub of one. The track ran out of the room in several different directions. Presumably, the little carriages had been intended to transport equipment in and gold out. But they had never got very far with the actual mining and Lex assumed that the railway, too, was unfinished.

He and Jesse moved cautiously into the cavern. They walked past laid and unlaid track, and a couple of steam trains with names like I. M. Daring. A multitude of rusty tools lay around on the gravelly floor, too. There was something a little sad about the abandoned scene? with all that stuff just left down there to rot. When the great gold rush had started, bright-eyed, hopeful people had flocked to Dry Gulch thinking that they were going to make a fortune when, in actual fact, they had met only with disaster, death and destruction before they were finally forced to close up the mine, cut their losses and flee.

Jesse and Lex passed through the cavern at a brisk walk. The canaries had started to talk to each other and that worried Lex. Whilst they may have only been chirping softly, the fact was that there was at least one fire-bunny down here and, possibly, a dragon as well that might be alerted to their presence by the noise.

‘Damned birds,’ Lex muttered under his breath.

At least the fact that the mine was unfinished meant that it shouldn’t take too many hours to explore it. If they covered every scrap of ground and failed to find a dragon then they would know that it was useless.

They were about halfway across the cavern when there was a dull rumbling. They could feel it as well as hear it. The very walls and floor seemed to tremble and bits of rubble fell from the ceiling. Now that sounded more like a dragon and this cavern would certainly be big enough for one. From the sounds of it, the thing was gigantic and, suddenly, the thought of attempting to kill it seemed… well… completely and utterly absurd. Lex was a clever thief, not a warrior. How the heck was he supposed to manage it?

But then the rabbits came. They poured out of the tunnel from which Lex and Jesse had entered, as well as the other three tunnels alongside that one. Perhaps, back in the days that the mine was being built, there had just been a small pack of fire-bunnies. Now there were hundreds. And hundreds. And hundreds of them. And they were all swarming directly towards Jesse and Lex, some of them even shooting little plumes of fire from their mouths in their excitement.

‘Oh my Gods,’ Lex whispered.

He and Jesse spun on the spot and ran along a line of track towards one of the exits, out of the cavern. A single cart was perched in the dark arch, poised to run along the track sloping downwards into the next room.

‘Get in the wagon!’ Lex shouted, leaping in.

‘Get in?’ Jesse gasped, aghast. ‘Have you gone barmy? We don’t know where that track goes! It ain’t safe! It might not even hold our weight-’

‘Get in here right this second or I’m leaving without you!’ Lex snapped. ‘I don’t care where it goes! We can’t escape those things on foot and they’ll be on us any moment now!’

Jesse glanced over his shoulder. And Lex took the opportunity to grab his arm and drag him bodily into the cart. The cowboy lost his balance and flipped into it head first. There was barely room for the two of them and the force of Jesse’s bulk landing inside was all that was needed to push the cart forwards on to the track.

As it turned out, the next room wasn’t a room so much as another huge cavern, even bigger than the first one. As before, the caged glow-canary? still clutched in Lex’s arms? set off all the rest. There were hundreds of them hanging from the ceiling again. No doubt they had been brought in to illuminate the area so that the workmen could see the monstrosity they were building. It looked like some sort of wooden roller coaster. Tracks on stilts weaved everywhere within the great space, from all directions, branching off this way and that to other parts of the mine.

Unfortunately, so much track meant that certain routes had to bend and dip rather horribly in order to fit in with the rest of it, and the track Lex and Jesse were on went, almost instantly, into a two-hundred-foot drop. Jesse barely had time to right himself in the cart behind Lex before it was plummeting downwards.

The two of them screamed their heads off. The rickety little wheels of the cart blazed along, leaving a trail of sparks and making a horrible, tearing, rusty, screeching sound, as if they were about to come right off the track altogether.

But then, suddenly, it levelled out. Despite the initial drop, they were still astonishingly high. Then they found themselves shooting upwards, carried along by the force of their own momentum. They came to a brief slow at the top of the curve? just long enough for Lex to glance back and see that the rabbits had reached the entrance and, unable to stop themselves, a whole load of them were toppling through the arch like lemmings, freefalling the two-hundred-foot drop to the tracks below. That seemed to kill them, which was reassuring. Finally, they managed to stop themselves and, instead, piled up in the archway, blowing fire out into the cavern. They were far too far away to be able to reach Lex and Jesse, for that brief, frenetic wagon ride had carried them right out to the middle of the cavern.

‘Perhaps we oughta try and get out-’ Jesse began, but it was already too late.

The cart tipped over the top of the curve and then they were speeding off again. This time the drop was not so steep, but the track was long and straight instead, heading directly towards a tunnel on the opposite side of the cavern. Jesse was relieved at first, for this would surely get them off this helter-skelter of death. But then Lex said, ‘Uh oh.’

When you’re speeding along on an ancient, unfinished mining track, the very last thing you want to hear coming out of anyone’s mouth is, Uh oh.

‘What?’ Jesse asked.

‘The track runs out up ahead.’

Jesse looked over Lex’s shoulder and saw that he was right. The track ran out abruptly. Where it should have continued, there was just empty space stretching out ahead? and they were speeding right towards it. Perhaps it had collapsed due to age and damp, or perhaps that part of the track had never been built to begin with. However it had happened, the track disappeared out from under the cart a bare second later and Lex and Jesse found themselves hurtling through the air with a great cavernous drop stretching out beneath them.