Briar Blackwood's Grimmest of Fairytales (16 page)

“No way,” he said. He pulled the phone from his knickers with a smile of amazement. “My mom's gonna kill me for these roaming charges,” he said.

“Dax, Sherman, you two stay here. Hide behind these suits of armor near the door and text me if someone is coming,” she whispered. “Tarfeather will come with me.”

Tarfeather swallowed hard and his mouth went slack. Briar bent over to get closer to the floor and to Tarfeather's quivering face. “Don't be afraid. Everything will be okay,” she said. She nodded to him and he hopped onto her shoulder and buried himself into the folds of her hood.

Then Sherman spoke with hushed, cracking voice. “Before you go, you must know something about this enchantment.”

“What?”

“Most magic is done in short bursts,” he said. “But a dragon's magic can last as long as one can physically bear it. Legends say the magic of transformation can tax the body and the mind.”

“You're just full of good news today. Okay—whatever. I feel fine. But thanks.” Briar turned to leave, feeling unsettled to her core.

“Wait!” Sherman said. “If you feel depleted, you must get out of that room immediately.”

Briar rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Dad. I think I got this—”

Then she stood up, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She then imagined the sound, the voice of Lady Orpion. When she thought she had a good recollection of her voice, she opened her eyes and knocked on the chamber door.

A guard opened it. As soon as he saw her, he knelt low. “My Lady.”

Briar lifted her chin, haughty and sedate. “I wish to speak with my ward,” she said. She was surprised that the words came so naturally. Dax and Sherman, their backs pressed to the stone walls, exchanged looks of approval at Briar's performance.

“She said that
you
had summoned
her
, My Lady, and she left moments ago to your quarters,” the guard said.

“Yes…” Briar replied. Then she stood silently for a long time, trying to figure out what to say next. She knew that if she said the wrong thing, she'd blow it for them all, and she started to choke. The guard, sensing something was wrong, decided to look up at the fake Orpion. He sniffed the air.

“My Lady?” he asked. Then he darted his eyes away as soon as he had spoken.

Briar lied with an imperious tone to save her mistake. “I meant that I came back for the frog.” She took several confident strides into the room that sent her black cloak fluttering behind her. She searched with her eyes, but if Leon was in that chamber, he was nowhere in plain sight.

Tarfeather peeked out from behind her head and searched too. He whispered in her ear, “Not hearing, not smelling commons in here, Briar Blackwood.”

“The frog is where you placed him last,” the guard said. He
stood up now, closed the chamber door, and took a few dangerous steps toward her.

“Of course he is,” she said. She turned to face the guard with a placid stare. “That will be all.” But he wouldn't leave.

“Go ahead and take him…My Lady,” he said, squinting, stepping closer.

“Take one more step and—” Briar began.

Now certain that he had caught a plot before it had fully hatched, the guard spoke. “And what? What will you do?”

Briar tried to figure out what to say next, but she drew a blank. She chose instead to stare defiantly, holding her serene facial expression in place the best that she could.

Then she heard buzzing coming from her robes. The guard flinched and began to cringe a bit from the sound. “What is that?” he asked.

It made sense. He didn't know about cellphones. Briar took it out and it lit up, buzzing some more. The guard rocked backward and fell to a kneeling posture.

“That's right,” Briar said, “its magic. And I've got plenty of it. Lucky for you I only need one frog, fool—or you'd be next in line.” Then she placed the buzzing phone on the guard's exposed neck and he shuddered with a whimper. “Now bring him to me before I decide that what I really want is a worm to squish beneath the soles of my shoes.”

“Of course, My Lady,” the guard said, and he ran to a faded tapestry on a far wall.

She read the text from Dax saying that Gelid was coming down the hall.

Briar watched him impatiently and her leg began to shake from anxiety. The guard reached up to the pale image of a cage that was embroidered into the whole scene. It was hidden among unicorns, pomegranate trees, and a host of courtly lords and ladies. As he touched the weaving depicting the cage, the actual cage with Leon in it pulled away in his hand, leaving a blank spot
on the wall hanging. He hurried back and offered the cage to her with lowered eyes.

Leon hopped as far away as he could from who he thought was the Lady Orpion. Briar snatched the cage away, and the guard flinched at her quick gesture. The phone buzzed sharply in one of her hands. The guard cowered and backed away. The text just said, “Hurry.”

“Why, all he needs is a little push to succeed,” Tarfeather said, in one of his television voices.

“Stand up,” she commanded.

As though he was shocked by a thousand volts of electricity, the guard sprang up and stood at attention. She held up the phone, its blue-gray light glowing in his face. He made a little whimpering noise and then he backed away from the strange object she held in front of his face.

“No, My Lady. Please.”

“That's right, keep backing up and no one gets hurt,” she said.

The door lock clinked.

Briar had no more time. With a burst of energy, she charged the guard and shoved him with every ounce of her strength into the tapestry.

Chapter 20

“My Lady,” Gelid began. She made a slight bow, but never allowed her eyes to meet Orpion's. Briar could not sense the tone of their relationship, beyond this formality. She watched as Gelid secured the chamber door, then she folded her hands together at her waist like a prim cloistered nun awaiting orders from her Mother Superior. Her blue dreadlocks hung like ropes across her face as she lowered her chin. “You surprise me,” she continued. “I was in your chamber not more than a moment ago.”

“By now you should expect surprises,” Briar said. She was shocked at how quickly she could come up with a bluff. She realized she was still holding the cell phone and she shoved it into her robes. She flicked her eyes to the cage with Leon inside. The eye movement, though subtle and relatively imperceptible in any other circumstance, gave away the purpose of her presence in Gelid's chamber.

“Ah, you came for the boy. So it is agreed, then. We shall complete Skull Sigil tonight,” Gelid said. She glided over the frigid stone floors to the dressing table and standing mirror solemnly adorned with white taper candles, carved with filigree, and drenched in gilt. Briar noticed the magical jeweled hand mirror laying on the table.

“Yes, of course—the Skull Sigil,” she replied.
There it was; but how to get it—
She gave a haughty chuckle, thinking that was probably just what Orpion would do.

Tarfeather whispered a movie line in her ear, “Run, child— like you've never run before!”

“My Lady,” Gelid said. “It is as if the tides of time favor us. The moons dim and they are nearly concealed. No matter what becomes of the Blackwood girl, the Omens are null without the boy.” Gelid sat and lifted the jeweled mirror with porcelain priestess' hands, reserved for tasks away from the sun or labor.

The she withdrew a glass vial from her belt. It was as long as a man's thumb, and in it, thick red blood. “Once I am wed to the prince, nothing will stand in your way.” Briar watched as Gelid poured blood out in a thin sappy stream onto the mirror. It puddled, and she smeared it like finger paint.

She pointed the mirror at the chamber door. Just as before, the mirror illuminated with a strange white intensity. Countless pins of light, silver as moonlight, shot from its reflective surface across the room to the door. It glowed for a moment and then sealed up with stones. Like many of the other chambers, the builders had constructed no windows in order to maintain palace safety. But now there was no door. Briar suddenly felt dizzy. She teetered as though the floor had taken a slant.

“Too late, Briar Blackwood!” Tarfeather whimpered. Then he burrowed deeper into the hood.

“Yes,” Briar replied. She swallowed hard and tried to control any quavering in her voice. But the danger of the situation made it clear that there was no control over anything now.

Gelid set the mirror down, gave a strange, hungry smile and then placed mechanical goggles over her eyes. “Now that none can intrude, clear the boy from his cage, dark Queen. Allow me to finish the last binding at my own hands, to rid this world of the Omens.”

“This is no time to take chances,” Briar said. “Unseal the door, and I alone shall complete the Skull Sigil in my chambers.” She moved boldly to the wall where once was a door. A self-assured manner was even more necessary than before. She raised her chin expectantly.

But Gelid did not react as Briar hoped. She raised her eyebrows to the Lady Orpion. “Beg pardon, Lady, but this cannot be done alone. The Skull Sigil requires two. Have you abandoned your trust in me?” Gelid bowed her head, and her many knotted dreadlocks cascaded.

Briar noticed that although Gelid's head was bowed, she was
now following the Lady Orpion with suspicious eyes.

“I have not abandoned faith in you. But I have changed my mind,” Briar said. She felt the churning in her stomach and the prickle of power building in her hands. She saw the lit candles at the dressing table and it occurred to her that she was usually near fire when her hand-flames appeared. If this was true, then they might appear at any moment.

Why had she listened to Sherman and Dax? As she thought back, she realized that they never really had a plan at all. It was a gamble from the start. But now there were few cards left to play, except to continue bluffing.

Gelid did not budge. “Why does the Lady Orpion walk in bare feet?”

Briar looked down and saw that one of her bare feet stuck out from beneath the long robes and she pulled it back. “I, um…felt hot flashes. You know what happens to women at my age—”

Gelid interrupted. “Where is the guard that was here before?” she asked. She took a vial of blood from the side of her boned corset and swallowed it down. A trickle oozed from the corner of her mouth. She raised her goggles while striding toward the false Orpion, and she stood close to Briar's face.

“I sent him to watch over the Blackwood girl and her companions,” Briar said. She struggled to restrain the terror seizing her throat. She knew by now her hands must be fully ablaze and she tried to hide them inside her sleeves. “Now do as I say, and unseal this door.”

Gelid's own eyes had changed to those of a reptile: cold, green, with slits where there ought to be pupils. She inspected Briar's face, as though trying to understand how a street conjurer's illusion had fooled her.

Gelid bowed reverently, “Of courssse.” She stood upright and smiled. But now her teeth were sharp, ghoulish protrusions. Then she muttered something low, in an unfamiliar language that sounded like something caught in her throat. Suddenly she
doubled over with a shriek. She toppled to the floor and writhed, curling like a worm that had been severed.

Briar backed up, her hands bursting with flames. She tightened her hold on the cage and then she whispered to Leon using her own voice, “It's me, Briar. Don't worry, I'll get you out of here.” Leon nodded, but his eyes were distracted and full of doubt.

Gelid was completely still beneath her cloak. “This is no time for games, Gelid.” Briar tried to still sound in charge. Was Gelid dead? Briar crept forward and reached out a toe to jab at the body. She lifted the cloak only to find a misshapen embryonic thing within a translucent fleshy membrane. Its head was long and horned and its body was sleek, scaled and glistening black. Whatever it was, it hadn't fully formed.

Briar's stomach dry-heaved and she backed up, falling over a footstool near the filigree table. Leon's cage rolled beneath. Briar felt her innards melt as the black creature clawed its way out of the filmy cocoon and unfurled to its full serpentine length. But it wasn't a snake. It was something more repulsive.

It stood on stubby, claw-footed legs, as tall as Gelid, but it seemed to continue growing. It opened its slimy black-within-black eyes and then hissed angrily at Briar, snapping its long toothy jaws. It craned its twisting neck and licked with its black reptilian tongue at two malformed buds on its back that Briar supposed were to be wings. Instead they looked like short webbed claws that had atrophied.

“Jeez, Gelid. That may not the best look for your wedding night.” Briar grabbed the footstool in her blue-blazing hands, and held it like a shield against the giant black beastie.

The thing hissed and curled its claws downward, leaving gouges in the floor. Briar knelt down, grabbed Leon's cage, and ran to the far end of the room. But there was nowhere else to go.

The creature sidewound its way and stopped within striking distance. Briar threw the footstool at it, but the awful thing was
quick to nab with its toothy jaws, and crush the furniture to splinters. The monster laughed with a sound like a punctured tire. It towered above Briar on its malformed hind legs, licking the air with its black forked tongue. Brownish saliva slavered from its sharp jaws and sizzled on the stone floor below.

With a boom and a crash the wall of stone behind the beast erupted and crumbled to a heap of rubble. There with his paws upraised in some magical gesture, stood Sherman. Dax stood behind, watching in astonishment.

The creature spun itself around and snapped its jaws. Then it lunged at Sherman with its massive body. But he quickly tucked into a ball and rolled aside. The enormous creature landed amid the rubble, scattering stones like toys around the room, then it coiled up to strike again.

“The flames,” Sherman shouted. “Throw one at the dragon!”

Tarfeather, who had been clinging to the inside folds of Briar's cloak, saw the creature advancing on Sherman. He shouted, “The creeper, Briar Blackwood! Killery it!”

But before Briar had a chance to do anything, the reptile struck Sherman, sinking its fangs into his back. He yelped in a high-pitched canine cry.

“No!” Dax howled. He picked up a large piece of stone and slammed it down on the monster's scaly head. It unlocked its jaws and recoiled. Sherman flopped to the floor and did not move. He lay in the middle of a small blood-lake. The monster furiously sounded off with a noise like a hundred angry wildcats.

With a demonic, unstoppable rage, the beast slithered to strike Dax. He tried to back away, but tripped and fell onto the mountain of wall-stones piled just behind him.

“Behind!” Tarfeather insisted. “Takery from behind!”

Gelid rasped and bore down at Dax who rolled to one side. The creature's fangs scratched at the stone, sparking, gashing.

Briar charged up behind Gelid and struck her scaly back with one of the blue flames. There was a sound like raw meat sizzling
on a grill, and the creature began twisting upon itself, like a great knot that kept tying. The monster screeched as electric strands of silvery lightning scorched between the crevices of her tangled body, causing her to wrench into a tightly constricted mass.

Dax scrambled to his feet while the dragon uncoiled with a final high-pitched cry. Then it sprawled, lifelessly, across the floor.

One of Briar's hands was normal again, but the other still blazed with power. She stood staring at it. Then she ogled the creature. Back and forth she did this, trying to understand what just happened. It wasn't until Dax picked up Leon's cage and ushered Briar toward the wall-opening, that she began to come back to her senses.

“Takery mirror,” Tarfeather whispered. “Great powers it havery.”

“Go,” Briar said to Dax. She motioned to the opening. He hopped through it while she made a hasty detour to Gelid's dressing table. She seized the mirror and stuffed it into her robes. She knew Dax hadn't seen her do it, but she felt that it needed to be kept secret for now.
Who knows how it might help later on?
she reasoned. Then she dashed back to Dax, who stood looking down at something behind a rocky pile of wreckage.

There at his feet, Briar saw the fox lying with his red and white fur soaked through with blood. “Sherman!” Briar cried with such force that she was certain the remaining walls would crumble into dust.

Dax held her back. “It's too late. We have to get out of here.”

Briar doubled over and sobbed. “We can't just leave him here.” She knelt down and lifted Sherman's floppy body with her flameless hand. He felt lighter than she expected. And he was already getting cold. She pressed his form to her chest. His head lolled to one side and a strand of blood dripped from his mouth. Briar then listened to his chest. She felt like crying again, but this time from joy. Sherman's heart was still beating. It was faint. But he was alive.

“Come on!” Dax shouted. He was now in the outside hallway looking in all directions for guards, who probably heard the immense explosion and Gelid's gruesome shrieks.

Briar began to negotiate a path between the chunks of strewn stone. And when she passed Gelid's reptilian head, it lifted. Without Briar ever noticing, the thing widened its jaws, forming sticky saliva strings.

“Briar Blackwood!” Tarfeather screeched.

Instinctually, Briar slid down onto the rubble, trying to evade the creature. It bore down again, its sharp teeth gouging the rock-pile on either side of Briar's leg. She felt the dragon's wet mouth, but she was unharmed. Gelid slithered with all of her weight on Briar's robes, and pinning her to one spot. The creature raised itself for a final deadly bite, opening its mouth wide, when Briar whipped the remaining blue flame from her hand. The ball of fire propelled like a skyrocket, striking inside the dragon's mouth.

The creature bit down and tried to shake the flame out. But Briar watched the power from the flame glow through the creature's body and travel into its core. The reptile screamed and recoiled backward into a corner. It paced back and forth several times, like a mad, trapped animal, trying to expel the flame. It vibrated out of control when black smoke began to billow from its mouth. It slammed its own body to the floor, trying in vain to get the flame out. In desperation, the creature sank its claws into its belly and ripped itself apart with a wall-shaking howl that was filled with all the wildness of the world. Innards and black blood washed across the floor, soaking Briar's feet with a foul stench.

The dark creature finally lay without a sound, smoking and sizzling like doused campfire logs. Briar looked down at the slick black mess in which she stood and tried not to wretch.

“Now that's a perfectly cooked pot-roast,” Tarfeather impersonated from a television cooking show.. “No time for wastery. Runnery!”