“I don’t think so.”
“I thought she couldn’t produce a stone until she was killed,” Kate said.
“The queen’s different,” I moaned. “That stone produces a king.”
“How do you know?”
“It was in the book,” I said dejectedly.
“Well, let’s deal with one thing at a time,” Kate insisted. “You’ve got to get into that cage!”
Kate had me drag one of the organ pipes into the cage with me. She then positioned herself behind some cereal drums as I stood shakily inside the large cage holding up the pipe. I kept my eyes closed and my ears open. When I heard Lizzy’s far cry my eyelids shot open and my arms began to imitate my shaking knees.
I heard Lizzy land and drop her spoils in the front of the cave. I heard her wings flap twice and then suddenly she was coming through the hole in the wall with a mouthful of roof. I leaned on the pipe to keep myself from falling over.
Lizzy stepped up to her nest and dropped the roof on top of the pile of pillaged goods. Instantly I could tell she was ill at ease because she began to bristle and look around frantically. She obviously figured out one of her pipes was missing.
She spotted me holding her possession.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, talking big. “I’ve got your precious pipe.”
Lizzy snorted, and my stomach scrambled to hide behind my lungs.
“Come get it, Lizzy,” I hollered. I knocked on the pipe with my knuckles.
She roared and began to step in my direction.
“Seriously,” I told her. “If you can take it from me, it’s all yours.”
Lizzy lowered her head and stomped faster. I backed up until I couldn’t back up any further. She stopped about ten feet in front of the cage and clawed at the dirt.
“Come on,” I challenged.
Lizzy screamed and whipped her tail violently against the ground. Her face and body were amazing. Her horns were pure white and her blue eyes were now circled by gray scales. She was even larger than she had been yesterday, and I wished so badly that she was still as kind to me as she once had been. I saw no kindness in her eyes.
“Don’t stop now,” I ordered.
She stepped halfway through the large door and snorted wickedly.
“You don’t seem very committed to this pipe,” I told her. “I mean you’re moving pretty slow.”
Lizzy stepped in further. She looked at me with her huge eyes. I thought for a second that she was going to smile and it would be a happy ending, but instead she opened her jaws as large as she could and lunged toward me screaming.
I screamed too, throwing the pipe at her and dashing around her right front leg. I could see Kate running to close the cage door as Lizzy’s tail whipped me off of my feet and sent me flying into the dirt. I got to my feet just as she turned around. I could hear her scream, and I felt fire pushing up against my back.
Kate slammed the cage door and put the pin in it. Kate’s actions distracted Lizzy and I slipped through the bars.
“You’re on fire!” Kate screamed.
I ran ten feet and dived to the dirt to roll around a little. The small flames on my back were quickly extinguished. Kate ran to me and helped me sit up.
“Are you okay?” she asked with such concern that I felt I should milk it a little.
“Fine,” I coughed.
Lizzy was not happy. She was pulling at the bars with her talons and flapping her wings like a spoiled dragon.
“I can’t believe we did it!” I yelled. “I can’t believe it!”
“Nor can I,” a voice said from behind us.
I turned my head so quickly it almost snapped off.
“Whitey,” I said in shock.
Whitey was wearing his brown robe with the hood pulled down over his eyes. He waved his white hands around and even in the bad lighting they seemed to glow.
“Congratulations, Beck,” he said kindly. “You’re a truly brave soul.” Kate cleared her throat. “And you as well, young lady.”
“Lizzy’s still not dead,” I reminded him. “But I just thought of something as she was trying to kill me. I guess almost dying kinda clears my mind. I was thinking that if she can only die by being choked, and if she’s growing so fast, maybe the rope around her neck will just become so tight she’ll choke to death.”
“Perhaps,” Whitey said slowly. “But that’s leaving much to chance. It might be best if we take care of it sooner. Fetch me some rope.”
I turned and looked around the cavern.
“Um, Beck,” Kate whispered from the side of her mouth. “Can I talk to you?”
“Let’s get that rope first.” I pointed to a large coil.
Kate was jogging right behind me trying to tell me something. “Are you sure you can trust this guy?”
“No,” I said. “But if he’s willing to help us, I’ll be glad to let him.”
I grabbed the lengthy coil of rope and threw it over my right shoulder. As I turned around, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Whitey was pulling the pin out of the cage door and the door was swinging open.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled.
“What I was born to do,” he laughed.
Lizzy stomped out of the cage and gazed directly at me.
“She’ll kill me,” I argued, as if he didn’t know that already.
Whitey just stared at me. My only chance was to run for it. I looked at Kate.
“Go,” I screamed.
Kate took off, and I dropped the rope and dashed madly for the hole in the wall. Kate tripped, and I grabbed her hand and pulled her up. I could hear Lizzy gliding toward us screeching. We scrambled through the hole as Lizzy plowed into the back of us sending Kate and I flying in two different directions. Kate was tossed toward the metal door and I landed hard under the metal train platform. My right arm smacked one of the steel beams.
I tried to scream gracefully.
Lizzy stood on her hind legs and exhaled. As she breathed out, fire filled the room and I was afraid I was going to melt right where I was. She slammed her front legs down and stomped closer to me as I writhed in pain. I wanted to cross my hands and call a time-out, but my right arm was hurt, and I didn’t think Lizzy was the kind of dragon who played by those rules.
Kate was up and throwing rocks at the back of Lizzy.
“Over here!” she yelled.
Lizzy had no interest in Kate. She stepped even closer to me.
“Stop it!” Kate kept screaming. “Stop!”
Lizzy stepped past the huge reel and over some of the tangled cable that was attached to it. As one of her back feet came down it became caught in the cable, tethering her where she was. She flapped her wings and pulled her leg up violently. As she yanked herself forward, the cable moved and shifted. I turned my head and saw that the huge iron reel was beginning to roll slowly as Lizzy struggled.
Lizzy gave up on her trapped leg and turned her focus back on me. She dragged the tangled cable, screaming. The steel cable was wound through one of the metal beams that held up the platform above me. Each step Lizzy took moved the cable and caused the reel to roll away from us.
My arm hurt horribly and blood from my forehead was dripping into my eyes. I was seeing red.
“Lizzy!” I heard Kate scream.
Lizzy looked at me and smiled. Sadly, it wasn’t the kind of smile I was hoping to see from her. Instead it was the kind of smile that caused my entire body to go cold and my soul to look for a way out of my doomed body.
“Kate!” I yelled, knowing she couldn’t do anything.
I was in the process of saying good-bye to my life when Kate threw a loop of rope around Lizzy’s head and pulled back to tighten it.
“Hold on, Beck!”
I could see Kate straining as if playing tug-of-war with Lizzy’s neck. Unfortunately, I could also tell that Kate wasn’t nearly strong enough to deliver a complete strangling. It was enough, however, to cause Lizzy to pay some attention to Kate ins
tead of me.
I watched Kate pull on the rope, and I saw the tangled wire that Lizzy was standing in. The big reel that had the end of the wire still hooked to it was rolling further away as Lizzy moved. My mind kept telling me that there was something I should be aware of and doing, but I couldn’t focus on it.
Lizzy screeched and shuffled, tangling her feet in the wire even more. It then became clear to me what I had to do.
“Thank you, Professor Squall,” I whispered.
I flipped over onto my stomach and crawled to the steel beam with the metal rungs. I lifted a section of the wire cable over my shoulder and pulled myself up on the rungs. My right arm hurt so badly it was hard to use it much.
Kate screamed at Lizzy and tugged on the rope.
I whimpered and wailed as I pulled myself up the ladder. The steel cable was so heavy I thought the weight of it was going to cut me in half. I got to the top of the platform and crawled up, crying in pain. With my right leg and left arm I hoisted the loop of cable on top of the platform and around the top of one of the beams. As I got it into place, my left leg slipped and I fell back to the ground in a heap of misery and pain.
I looked over at Kate and was surprised to see Van standing over her with a shovel. He swung the shovel, and Kate flew to the ground. I watched her slide across the ground and then just lay there.
“Kate!” I yelled.
Both Lizzy and Van turned to look at me.
“Stop!” I begged.
“I followed you back up here,” Van said. “I heard the train crashing through the woods. You almost hit me.”
“I’d feel bad about that,” I said, “but you left us for dead.”
“Small price to pay for fame,” he crowed creepily. “You can’t kill the dragon! She must live.”
Van’s sentiment was nice, but apparently Lizzy didn’t feel the same way about him. She opened her mouth and roared. Then she swung her head down, and with one swift snap of her jaws, Van was gone. He just vanished. I couldn’t believe my eyes—but where my eyes might have been fooled, my stomach wasn’t. I leaned to my right and lost my lunch, dinner, and any snacks I might have had in between. I couldn’t do this anymore. Kate wasn’t moving, Van was gone, and my body ached like an overbeaten piñata.
Lizzy swallowed, raised her head up, and blew fire into the air. She then lowered her head and glared directly at me with her dark blue eyes. She shuffled closer to me. I looked at the moving cable I had strung around the top of the platform. The reel was rolling directly toward the moss opening.
“Come on!” I yelled. “Aren’t you going to finish me off?”
Lizzy lunged at me but her tangled foot made her fall forward. Her huge head hit the ground and she slid to a stop a couple of feet away. It was just what I needed. I sprang up and lifted a loop of the cable over Lizzy’s head. She pushed herself up onto her back legs ranting and writhing, the cable slipping down around her neck. She attacked again, and the reel rolled closer to the exit.
My brain belched and shivered as a small bit of hope covered my heart.
“I’m so sorry, Lizzy,” I whimpered.
Lizzy screamed and I crawled backward, dragging myself as far from her as I could. I got about ten feet away before the wall stopped me. She stood all the way up and tried to get closer, but the cable around her neck and foot made it very difficult for her to move. Kate was still lying lifeless on the ground.
The dragon stepped closer. Smoke was puffing from her nostrils, and her blue eyes looked red. The mammoth reel was still rolling toward the exit, but it was going slower than I needed it to.
“Come and get me!” I cried. “You crazy lizard!”
Lizzy dug all four feet into the ground and plunged forward three feet. The reel began to roll faster; the pulley I created with the steel beams was working perfectly.
“Come on,” I hollered. “Is that all you’ve got!”
Lizzy opened her mouth and screamed like a choir full of banshees. Dragon spit and phlegm sprayed all over me. She threw her front legs forward and with amazing strength moved to within a couple of feet of me. I could see the reel moving, but I knew it was too late. Lizzy stood up on her hind legs and reached her front ones out as if measuring the distance between her and me. She leaned her long neck back and then swung her head forward. I saw her sharp wet teeth flying toward me, and I knew it was over. I closed my eyes waiting to hear the sound of my skull crunching. Instead, all I heard was the noise of something gargantuan falling just outside of the cave.
I opened my eyes.
Lizzy’s mouth was moving away from me, and her eyes were wide with surprise. I looked over to see the reel, and it was gone. It had rolled right out of the cave with the end of the cable attached to it. The cable whizzed around the metal beam I had looped it over. The loose coil wrapped around Lizzy’s neck tightened and pulled her up. She was flipped onto her back, and then with one fantastic tug, the cable completely drew in and constricted with a deadly grip around Lizzy’s neck. The queen looked at me with her blue eyes as she choked and emitted her final breath. She was thoroughly and completely choked.
I got up onto my knees and used my one good arm to crawl over to Kate. I think I was crying, but there was so much blood and sweat on my face it was kind of hard to tell. Kate was still breathing, and as I leaned my face over hers she opened her blue eyes.
“You’re alive,” I exclaimed.
“I think you’re right,” she groaned, “but my head hurts.”
“I think my arm’s broken,” I told her.
We helped each other up. We leaned against one another and looked at Lizzy. Her body began to spark and break up, and then, like the other dragons before it, it broke into a billion pieces and dissolved. There was nothing left but a tangled mess of cable.
“I can’t believe it,” I smiled. “Professor Squall’s lecture on simple machinery paid off.”
“I’m sure he’d be proud,” she said.
“Lizzy was amazing,” I mourned.
“Yeah,” Kate said quietly. “But now we need a doctor.”
Kate helped me make a sling for my arm out of my jacket so the hike down the stairs wouldn’t be as painful. It wasn’t a half-bad sling considering it was made from a plastic windbreaker.
We were walking toward the exit when I remembered the stone. “Wait,” I said. “What happened to Whitey? And we need that stone.”
“We’ll get it later,” Kate insisted.
“No, we can’t leave it.”
The two of us walked over the crumbled rock from the hole in the cave and back toward the nest. When we reached it, I looked down.
“Is it me?” Kate asked worriedly. “Or is there no stone?”
“He took it,” I cried.
I could see that the back tunnel door was open. Whitey had taken the rock and ran, and I was in no mood to start exploring the dark tunnel to look for him. I groaned mournfully.
“You know what?” Kate asked me.
“What?”
“I know it sounds weird, but think I might know where he went.”
I looked at her like she was crazy. “Does it involve going down that tunnel?”
She shook her head.
“Then let’s go.”
Kate took my hand and pulled me quickly toward the exit and down the stairs. Even in the dark we could see the enormous reel that had rolled out of the cave and whose great weight had helped strangle Lizzy. It was hanging by the cable halfway down the side of the mountain.
Kate told me where she thought Whitey had gone as we walked through the dark trees. She also told me why she thought Whitey had gone there. I wanted to disagree with her, but I had no theories of my own. The one thing I did know was that before we did anything else, I needed to talk to my dad.
Illustration from page 77 of The Grim Knot
CHAPTER 27
Was It All Worth It?
The manor was shrouded in black. Only the lamp that hung above the wide service entry was diligent e
nough to keep shining. Inside, the kitchen was dark, and there was no sign of Millie and anyone else.
“Where is everybody?” Kate asked.
“I’m sure they’re out looking for us,” I said, trying to comfort myself.
The emptiness of the manor made me uneasy. I mean, I was used to it being vacant and lonely, but the silence after what had just happened didn’t seem right. I picked up the phone and made a quick call.
“What if your dad’s gone too?” Kate asked.
“I guess we’ll find that out in a minute,” I answered.
We hiked up the stairs. I was so sick of steps I felt like puking. Of course it could have also been that I was just in the mood to throw up.
“If I ever inherit this place, the first thing I’m doing is putting in an elevator,” I complained.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Kate gasped.
When we got to the top the door was open, and I could see that the dome roof was almost completely gone. I entered and reached for the light switch. Wind was dipping in and stringing itself around like toilet paper. The dome room was in a lot more ruin than the last time the dragons had been out.
My father was standing in the middle of the room with his arms behind his back and his face looking up toward the stars. Light from the open door painted the space and cast long
shadows on anything in the room. My father’s ragged hair and shirt fluttered like ribbons on a running fan.
“Dad,” I whispered, my voice competing with the soft wind.
He didn’t answer.
“It’s me, Beck,” I clarified.
“I saw the dragon,” he said quietly, never taking his eyes off of the stars.
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling incredibly guilty. “Sorry about the roof.”
Kate was right behind me. She nudged my back.
“Dad?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“She’s gone,” I reported.
“I figured,” he sighed.
Kate nudged me again. I decided to just get her dumb idea out of the way.
“You left us for dead,” I told him.
My father turned his head and looked at me and then Kate. He looked back up at the stars, his hands still clasped behind his back. It was hard to tell, but he appeared to be trembling just a bit.