The Upstream Writer: "Flashes of Inspiration" No. 23

#23: The Dragon In The Library

*Sequel to "The Castle"

The three siblings stood in that room for several moments without moving.

Lisa was the first to break the silence.

“Nope!” she yelled, marching out the door. “I’ve had enough. I’m done with this place!”

Mark lunged after her. “Wait! Lisa—“ he saw her turn in the outer hall and continued, “come on, you’re not just leaving us alone in here! Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

She shook her head. “Not any more! I’ll wait for you guys down where we moored then boat—but so help me, if it starts getting dark and you’re not down there with me, I guess I AM leaving you!” With that, she stalked back to the narrow underground stairwell.

Roger watched her leave and shook his head. “Too bad for her! I want to see if I can figure out this weird code.”

Mark snorted. “It’s a language, not a code.”

The sandy-haired young man was already squinting closely at the gold etching in the red cover. “Whatever—the principle should work the same, right?”

He turned back to the book. In the next moment, Mark grabbed the shelf beside him as the floorboards rumbled. Both brothers froze and locked eyes.

“What was that?” Roger stammered.

Mark lifted his gaze to the rafters still trailing dust down onto them. “This place is starting to give me the creeps.”

“Boy, you said i—“ A sharp pop interrupted Roger’s assessment, and suddenly a chair appeared beside him, where none had been before. He squinted at it. “Huh... Where did that come from?”

Mark wagged his head, moving toward the stone walls rather than near the precarious shelves. “It was probably there the whole time, you just didn’t notice.”

Roger hesitated, staring at the mysterious chair and prodding it with his finger. It certainly felt solid enough. “Only one way to find out,” he muttered. Turning around and taking the book from its stand, he sat upon the chair. “Ah, that’s more like it!” He resumed inspecting the strange runic language, looking for patterns and guessing at sounds.

Mark, meanwhile, did his best to inspect the view of the world outside through the thick, cut-glass window panes. Unfortunately, though they let in plenty of light, they were also thick enough to distort any view of the outside. He could distinguish colored patches of land, water, and sky, but that was it. Should they have gone back with Lisa? Why was this castle here, and what did all these strange things mean?

THWAP!

Mark felt the sting and whirled around just in time to see a pebble roll across the floor where it dropped. He glared at Roger. “OW!” he snarled. “That hurt!”

Roger raised his eyes with a bewildered expression. “What hurts?”

Mark crosses his arms and frowned at his brother. “Don’t give me that! You waited till my back was turned and you chucked a rock at my head!”

Roger set aside the book and scowled. “Did not!” He argued. “Where would I even get a pebble from?” His eye fell on the page he’d been reading. “As a matter of fact,” he mused, “I had just figured out that this word, kadag, might refer to stone...”

The moment he said the word, the very walls of the castle rumbled, and a stone from near the ceiling broke free of the mortar, crashing to the floor between the brothers.

Mark focused on the spot originally occupied by the rock. “I don’t like this,” he muttered. “This whole place is liable to come down.”

Roger was still looking at the book. “No, but I think I’ve cracked it, Mark! At least some of it. Let me try—“ He pointed to the large, blackened fireplace against the far wall of the library. “Rakhesh!” He said.

Mark heard a sound like a cough, felt a warm wind, and beheld a roaring fire in the hearth. He shoved his brother. “What is wrong with you?” he hollered. “You’re saying these words that we don’t actually understand, and things are just happening—we could get in some serious trouble!”

Roger snorted, flipping pages of the book, as the very floorboards seemed to vibrate under their feet. “Now you’re the one sounding crazy! It’s just a book, it can’t do anything! Watch! Here’s another word—Fulkat!” He turned back to stare at his brother, while Mark involuntarily held his breath as he waited for the walls to suddenly cave in.

Roger places his hands on his hips. “Do you know what that word meant, Mark? It meant protection. Aren’t you going to ask me how I know this? Well, I’ll save you the trouble—I don’t know!”

Mark’s eyes slipped to the book behind his brother, as Roger kept on raging at him. It could have been a trick of the light, but he could have sworn he saw one of the illustrations on the facing page actually start to move.

Roger kept right on speaking, almost without pausing. “It’s supposed to be this mysterious and other worldly language, but the more I looked at it, the more I could associate different sounds with the shapes, and it made sense—and then you start yelling at me like I’m the one who made all this stuff happen—“

Mark clamped a hand on his brother’s shoulder and pointed to the writhing picture as it abruptly lifted itself off the page and began to fade. “Roger! Look what it’s doing!”

Roger stopped and turned, but by that time, the illustration had dissipated completely. “What?” he asked. “What am I looking at?”

Mark felt the trembling even worse than before—how was Roger not affected by this? “That page!” he cried. “While you were talking, one of the pictures just crawled off the book!”

Roger squinted. “It did?” he asked. “What was it a picture of?”

“It was a—“ Mark stared at the gap, but it was as if the illustration had disappeared from his memory as well. “I... I don’t remember.”

The younger brother snorted. “And you’re saying I’m the crazy one... but hey, here are the words I figured out, at least some of them: “Fulkatta Kadapeg vash Rakhesh! Protect, stone, and fire!”

The shaking increased till the whole castle shook, and both brothers grabbed onto each other.

“Earthquake!” Roger hollered.

“Somehow I think it’s more than that!” Mark retorted. A flash of red streaked by the window—the same red from the illustration! “What was that?”

“What was what?” Roger asked, turning to follow his gaze as books tumbled off the shelves around them.

“Something flew by the window!” Mark answered, trying to work his way along with his brother, back toward the middle of the castle and safety.

“How is that even possible?” Roger queried. “You remember how high up this castle is! And there’s nothing but water all around!”

“I’m telling you, it’s—“

Just then, the mysterious thing appeared outside another window, and both brothers got a clear view of it.

They locked eyes and screamed together: “DRAGON!”

More stones began to drop, and they were still several yards from the door into the library.

“What have you done, Roger?” moaned Mark.

“How is this my fault?” Roger demanded.

Mark gripped his collar a little tighter. “You and your insatiable appetite for trouble—and you just HAD to pick out the words for stone, fire, and protection, of all things!”

“I’m sorry if those words offended you!”

“Listen, Roger!” Mark held on tight as they reached the safety of the small archway into the room. “What is this castle made of?”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Stone. But I don’t see—“

“And what would a dragon be doing around a castle that holds, among other things, books in an ancient or otherworldly language?”

Roger frowned in concentration. “You think it might be protecting this place?”

“Using what weapon?” Mark finished his last question as the dragon pulled up in front of a large window, giving them a full frontal view of it, even through the fractured glass.

Roger saw the open jaws, finally put the pieces together and gasped, ”FIRE!”

A brilliant, white heat blanketed the windows, but the fortification held, at least for now.

Roger suddenly gripped Mark’s wrist. “Wait—what about Lisa?”

Mark nodded. “We have to get down to her before the dragon finds her!”

No sooner did he say this, when the huge windows in the main atrium shattered, and the dragon burst into the space, trapping the boys in the doorway to the library, and cutting them off from the exit.

>>>>>>>>>>>