PART SIX
(See Peter M. Last's blog (http://www.peterlast.com/blog) for the odd-numbered parts of the story. See previous posts for the even-numbered sections.)
Shaking
himself, Wyatt took another deep breath and walked through the wall of the
shop. So he was insubstantial, was he?
Well, this was unexpected, but it certainly had its uses… Emerging from the
front wall of the shop, Wyatt marched down the street, keeping to the shade
thrown by the buildings so as not to be trapped into useless conversations with
people.
After the shock
of being told he was insubstantial had started to fade, Wyatt’s mind had
instantly flitted to the use he could make of his condition. Briefly, he had
considered the possibilities of sneaking around town to steal, but that would
hardly be glorious or heroic.
Glory. That was
why he had climbed up to the dragon’s cave today. To the people in this town,
he was just Narr’s boy, a scrawny kid who wouldn’t ever amount to much. Well,
all that would change, now that he had faced a dragon!
Wyatt’s
shoulders slumped. “Except I didn’t do so good.” I got burned up by the dragon before I even saw it, he thought
morosely. Hardly the stuff of legends.
There was a
kernel of an idea forming in his brain, though, a glimmer of a plan. There must
be some way he could use this invisibility thing against the dragon. Sure, he
couldn’t kill the beast in that form, but all he needed was the right weapon
and perfectly timed sunlight.
If I could sneak up on it… But that was
the limit of his plan at the moment. Wyatt pulled his sword off his back,
swinging it a couple times. He accidentally chopped through a pile of boxes in
the alley. Since the sword was insubstantial, though, it passed right through.
“Weird,” Wyatt
muttered, looking down at his sword hand. Or rather, through it, because he
couldn’t see his hand or the sword.
Yet he could feel the weight of the weapon. He shook his invisible head. He
could feel his clothing against his skin, the unkempt hair brushing his
forehead, the sweat trickling down his back from the heat of the day, but he
could not see so much as a single thread. “This Dragon’s Curse business is
peculiar, and no mistake.”
Wyatt slid the
sword through the loop of twine holding it on his back, emerging from the alley
on the outskirts of town. Before him, the countryside opened up into the
rolling foothills of the mountain. Wyatt paused for a moment, bracing his hands
on his hips as he tilted his head back to squint at dark scar high on the
mountain that was the dragon’s cave. Then he set his jaw and marched forward.
After a half
hour’s walking, it occurred to Wyatt that perhaps he should have waited till
the sun cooled off a little. The direct sunlight had turned his body
substantial again, so he could now see the dark sweat stains covering his tunic.
He had forgotten that he had already made the trek to the dragon’s cave and
back once today, but his muscles did; they burned and ached as he forced them
onward.
But Wyatt was
nothing if not stubborn; cast iron armor clanking, he patted around his belt
for the water skin he had tied there that morning. Finding it, he took a long
drink, grimacing at the warm, leathery taste. The skin was almost empty, and he
started looking for one of the many small streamlets that coursed down from the
mountain.
Then a thought
occurred to him, and he paused, frowning at the water skin. “You’re not
insubstantial,” he said to it. “But you were before, or those people would have
seen you hanging from my belt. Weird,” he muttered again. Apparently,
everything he had been wearing had also been affected by the Dragon’s Curse. “I
wonder if I could make something else insubstantial by touching it,” he mused
aloud.
Stooping, Wyatt
pulled up a blade of grass and then stepped over into the shade of a large oak.
He put his back to the trunk, the many branches forming an effective barrier
from the sun. In a matter of moments, his body began to fade; Wyatt drew in a
sharp breath, still unnerved by being able to see the grass he was standing on through his boots.
Then the blade
of grass he was holding began to sink through his skin. As his hand faded more
and more, the grass slowly moved down through his palm until it finally
fluttered free, falling to the ground. Wyatt shook his hand, frowning. Then he
looked at his other hand, still holding the water skin. He could barely see the
outline of the water skin as it, too, faded into invisibility. He raised it to
his mouth and drank.
Wyatt spat,
grimacing. Still warm and leathery. “Huh,” he muttered. “Too bad. But,” he
added thoughtfully, “if I could find a better weapon and get the dragon mad
enough to breathe fire at me at high noon again…” He frowned in deep thought
for a moment. Then he massaged his temple; he wasn’t used to such strenuous mental
exercise.
“Right now, I
need to get up there and scout around,” he decided.
Finding a small
stream, he refilled his water skin and marched on. Remembering a small pouch
hanging off the back of his belt, he retrieved it and rummaged around inside,
finding the remains of his lunch. Munching on the crusts of bread, Wyatt
followed the streamlet higher into the hills.
By the time he
had reached the narrow, switch-backing goat track that led partway toward the
dragon’s lair, Wyatt was worn out. He stopped to rest on a rock, panting; using
both hands, he pushed his sweaty hair off his forehead as he tipped his head
back, sizing up how much farther he had to go. He sighed wearily.
“Maybe I should
go back home, get some more supplies, and start again tomorrow,” Wyatt said.
Then he thought about explaining to his mother where he had been all day and
why his body kept fading in and out. Not to mention facing her wrath over the
remaking of her pots into armor…
Wyatt stood up
and resolutely marched onward.
When at last he
began the climb up to the ledge that was the front doorstep of the dragon’s
lair, the sun was sinking, coloring the sky in fiery streaks of red and orange.
Tired though he was, the exhilaration at being so close to his goal fueled his
aching limbs. Grimly, Wyatt jammed his hand into a crevasse in the rock face,
putting his boot on a small, jutting ridge.
As the sun
slowly disappeared beyond the horizon, Wyatt’s body began to fade. It was
unnerving, climbing while his hands and feet grew less and less distinct. After
a few almost-falls, Wyatt stopped trying to see his way and concentrated on
feel alone. He was spurred on by the thought that once his body became
completely insubstantial, he would fall off the cliff face, unable to hold on.
This, however,
did not happen; a crescent moon was rising in the darkening sky as he was about
five feet below the ledge. Wyatt could no longer make out his hands at all, but
here he was, still clinging to the rock face. “Weird,” he muttered to himself
for the umpteenth time that day.
Wyatt thought
about this oddity for a moment, hanging from two handholds with one foot braced
in a crevasse. He had fallen through the shopkeeper’s chair when he had tried
to sit, and he had walked through walls and even people. But, come to think of
it, he hadn’t sunk through the ground when he was walking. “Huh.”
This was
probably important, but his arms were beginning to burn from holding him in a
static position, and he continued the climb. Minutes later, he was pulling
himself onto the ledge, wriggling on his belly to haul his body up. The small
pebbles on the ledge, he noted, dug into his insubstantial skin. He stowed this
observation away for later consideration.
Wyatt had come
up about twenty yards from the mouth of the dragon’s lair. Being insubstantial,
he had taken it for granted that he would make no noise, but as he strode
toward the yawning opening, his cast iron armor clanked. Wyatt froze, heart in
his mouth, but when there was no growl or other sound from the lair, he
continued forward, though with more caution.
After
stealthily picking his way along the wide ledge in the faint light of the
crescent moon, Wyatt crouched by the cave mouth. Taking a deep breath, he then
stepped inside.
The moonlight
outside quickly faded as he moved inward, and he had to feel the way with his
hands. Barking his shin on a large rock, Wyatt swallowed his pained exclamation.
He frowned; he didn’t see the point of being insubstantial if he could still
hurt himself on rock.
He crept for a
long time through the wide passageway, moving carefully to avoid making any
noise. Presently, he could make out a red glow ahead, and he slowed even more.
He could hear something, too, a steady, low rumble that quivered through the
rock beneath his boots. His heart was
pounding like a drum, his breathing shallow. For the first time, it occurred to
him that this was a dragon he was
sneaking up on.
At last, Wyatt
crouched behind a boulder, just to the side of a huge cave that opened up from
the passageway. The red glow emanated from the cave, casting a lurid light into
the tunnel. Gathering his courage, Wyatt slowly, slowly, shifted to his knees
and began to edge around the boulder.
The steady
rumble suddenly changed, and Wyatt froze. He heard a gusty inhalation,
something huge taking a breath. Then a voice spoke.
It was a
dreadful voice, one that shook the tunnel where Wyatt hid. It sounded like
boulders being crushed to gravel, and it echoed around the cave with
magnificent resonance. Deep and loud, the voice spoke four words that glued
Wyatt to the spot.
“What? You back again?”
