Read Underworlds #4: The Ice Dragon Online
Authors: Tony Abbott
Underworlds #4: The Ice Dragon (7 page)
“Sword fight!” Sydney cried, rushing ahead like a warrior. Jon and I did the same, hacking away with our swords and surprising the Draugs with our ferocity.
Too bad ferocity only gets you so far. The Draugs were far better sword fighters, having practiced, like, forever. They lunged. They parried. They lunged again. We mostly jumped aside.
“Back up!” Jon shouted, pointing. “Across the floor to that passage!”
We dashed into a passage so tight the Draugs couldn’t follow us. They gargled a bunch of weird words, doubled back, and circled around.
“Hurry!” said Sydney. “Look —”
We squeezed out the end of the passage into a corridor of big iron doors, all chained shut.
“Dungeons, anyone?” said Jon.
“Dana!” I yelled. “Mrs. Runson! Dr. Runson!”
I clanged my sword lightly on every door until I heard an answer. “Owen Brown? Is that you?”
My heart leaped. “Mrs. Runson!”
“Stand back from the door!” Sydney raised her sword with both hands and brought the blade down on the door latch. The blow dented it, but her sword bounced back and nearly struck her in the helmet.
“My turn!” said Jon.
We took turns.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Together, the three of us finally hacked the latch to pieces. The door swung open, and Dr. and Mrs. Runson rushed out. “We never believed …”
“Where’s Dana?” I said, scanning the empty cell behind them.
They looked at each other. Mrs. Runson buried her face in her hands. Dr. Runson shook his head. “Hela has her,” he said softly. “She refuses to let her go.”
All at once, the door at the end of the passage burst open, and the whole place lit up like a city at night. The passage swarmed with the same angry Draugs as before, and Garm, too.
But we hardly looked at them.
Because out of the midst of the dead Viking warriors stepped … an even deader person. A demon … a witch … a corpse.
I knew exactly who it was — Loki’s evil daughter, Hela.
“And now … I have you all!” she crowed.
Hela was quite a sight, to say the least. She was an old skull-headed lady with stringy white hair. Her hands were the bones of a skeleton, hanging together with stringy sinews. Her arms and legs, visible under her cloak —
ugh!
— were covered in rags that may or may not have been rotten flesh. When she cracked open her jaws, worms slithered out.
She was a nice lady.
Oh, and on her skull-head sat a crown of mangled metal that looked as if it was left over from a really bad car crash.
I cleared my throat. “We’ve come for Dana.”
“She cannot leave my Underworld,” Hela said. Her voice was as cracked and rusty as her crown. “Fenrir came with my father’s command. The girl stays. You … may go.”
It escapes me how a dead skeleton lady could have breath, but she did, and it was really stinky. I nearly fainted. “We’re not leaving without her.” I stepped forward, my sword raised.
The Runsons, who probably knew enough to keep quiet, poked fingers in my shoulders. “Careful,” they whispered. “She’s a goddess, and really powerful.”
Hela jerked her way around us like a puppet on wires. It was sickening.
“Suit yourself,” she said. “Fenrir will make sure you stay with your friend. Of course, you have to be dead to really fit in.” She grinned wickedly. “But the Draugs and Garm will happily oblige.”
“At least let us see Dana,” said Dr. Runson. “We have to see our daughter.”
Hela laughed so loudly that a whole crew of worms dribbled down her chin. “Fenrir took her to his lair! She’s at the center of a maze of glass so intricate only Fenrir himself can thread his way in and out. I can’t get in if I wanted to. No, Dana Runson is lost to you. So go! Before I lose my patience and keep you all —”
Mrs. Runson began to cry.
I plucked the lyre softly, playing over the strings to see what worked on Hela.
“Stop that noise,” she said calmly. “It grates on me, and doesn’t do anything except make me angrier.”
So I stopped. Still, I had to get her to make a deal. Too bad I didn’t think it through before I opened my mouth.
“I’ll go to Fenrir’s lair,” I said. “I’ll vanquish him. I’ll bring Dana out.”
“What?” said Jon. “Owen, that’s —”
Hela whipped her ugly face around to me. “Oh, you will? You can’t possibly succeed at any of those things.”
My heart pounded like a jackhammer. “I will. And if I come back with Dana …?”
Hela was silent for a while. “Then you may take her home. But —”
“Here it comes,” said Sydney.
“You think yourself a junior Orpheus?” Hela said darkly. “Then find your way to Fenrir’s lair. Vanquish him if you can. Bring Dana back with you. But if you look back at her, for even a second, for a fraction of a
second, she remains in Niflheim forever …
and so do you
. Deal?”
I felt like my head was stuffed with wool. I had no choice. “Deal.”
Hela roared with tinny laughter. “Then follow me, everyone! To the mouth of Fenrir’s maze. Let’s watch as this boy fails!”
A
S WE TRAMPED DEEPER INTO
H
ELA’S CASTLE THAN
we ever wanted to go, I turned to my friends. “Dr. Runson, Mrs. Runson, tell me what you know about Orpheus. Sydney, read me everything you can find in Dana’s book!”
Down every set of stairs, down every ramp, the Runsons talked, Sydney read, and Jon patted my shoulders over and over until my brain was mush.
Was I Orpheus? No. Could I do anything at all like he did? Who knew? He was strong. He was a hero of the journey of the Argonauts. A hero in the Quest for the Golden Fleece. A hero — until he failed to rescue his wife from Hades.
Who was I?
Owen Brown. A kid.
“And here we are!” Hela rasped, fluttering her ragged robes around.
What we were looking at was a series of glass walls, ten or twelve feet tall. They were angled this way and that, and their edges looked as sharp as razor blades. Far away, in what I guessed was the center of the maze, we could make out the shape of a beast with red fur — Fenrir — pacing back and forth. Every few seconds, we glimpsed a figure behind him, standing motionless. Dana.
The Runsons hugged each other close.
Hela turned her beady eyes on me. “I have all the time in the world. But I don’t think she does. Your move.”
“Owen,” said Sydney quietly, patting my arm.
“I know,” I said.
“Good luck,” said Mrs. Runson.
“Thanks.”
I looked at Jon. He just nodded. I nodded back.
And I entered the maze.
It was as if I had entered another world.
The glass walls were as sharp as they looked, which I found out when I glanced back at everyone, and they watched me walk straight into one wall, bounce off another wall, and slide to the floor, nearly slicing myself in two.
“Careful!” I yelped to myself.
I rose to my feet slowly. But there were so many corridors, and at such crazy angles, that all I saw were reflections of myself. Dana and the center weren’t getting an inch closer.
Then I remembered for the second time that day what I’d learned so painfully in the Babylonian Underworld. Spaces resonated with a particular sound, a single pitch all their own. If I could play the right
notes, the lyre might be able to help me make my way between the glass walls to Dana.
I’d think about my inevitable battle with Fenrir when I got there. If I got there. No,
when
I got there. Part of being a hero was having confidence in yourself, right?
Bling … boong … pling-g-g-g!
The wall ahead of me resounded as I plucked the lyre. The sound echoed from one wall to another, all the way around what I guessed was a hidden corner. I slipped around it, played more notes, and a farther wall echoed. I moved to it, found a passage that was otherwise invisible, and played the lyre again. Note by note, step-by-step, I made my way to the center of the maze.
And Dana.
And Fenrir.
Dana was as excited to see me as I was to see her.
Fenrir, not so much.
He growled, and the smell of his breath almost knocked me over. His venom dripped and hissed on
the ground. If giant wolves could smile, I was sure Fenrir was smiling now, as if he saw his supper. My brain flashed with everything all at once. The first time I’d seen Fenrir at Dana’s house. The museum where Jon, Sydney, and I stole the lyre. The stranger at the museum whom we might have just seen in Asgard.
Then all the pieces fell into place. And I laughed.
“Really, Owen?” said Dana. “Laughing at a time like this?”
“The stranger,” I said. “He didn’t follow us at all. He followed the lyre.”
And suddenly I knew exactly what he meant by that riddle: four, two, three, one.
Fenrir growled and prepared to leap at me. Before he could, I played those notes: four, two, three, one. All at once, his back arched up like an angry cat’s, and he sank to the floor at my feet. Then he shrank into the back corner of his lair. He curled up, tucked his ugly head between his front paws … and started to whimper.
“Owen Brown!” came a distant yell that I recognized as Hela’s. “Remember our deal!”
I kept playing the lyre notes so that Fenrir would stay where he was, and filled Dana in.
Her eyes narrowed. “Owen, that is so dumb!” she cried.
“Believe me, I know,” I said. “But that’s the deal. Ready? Here we go.”
I turned my back on her. We started out of the core of the maze, me in the lead, Dana following. I played the lyre — four, two, three, one — and took the turns, left, right, to the side, backward, straight ahead. We were making our way out. Well,
I
was making my way out. I couldn’t hear Dana.
Orpheus couldn’t stop himself from looking back to see if his wife was still behind him, and I knew why. He must have felt just like I felt. I wanted to know that Dana was there. In this place, crafted by Loki, the trickster god himself, how could anyone be sure that the whole thing wasn’t a horrible trick? For all I knew, the whole journey might still be a colossal failure. Then we’d be living out our days in Niflheim forever.
And yet, note by note, we got closer to the entrance.
Five more turns in the maze, and we would be out. Or maybe only I would be out. Looking through the glass walls, I saw Jon, Sydney, and the Runsons. I looked at their eyes. They stared at me, then they searched the maze behind me. What was in their faces? Did they see Dana behind me? Or was I alone? I couldn’t tell.
Then I knew I had to look. I had to see if this was a trick….
My neck twitched. I felt my muscles straining, trying to hold my head forward. My heart pounded. My head ached. I heard nothing behind me. She wasn’t there.
She wasn’t there!
I opened my lips. I breathed in. My head turned to the side.
No!
I rushed ahead, playing the last note loud and full, and I was out of the maze.
Everyone screamed.
And Dana was there, clutching at my shoulders, pulling me to the ground, collapsing on me. Everyone piled on top of us.
Hela shrieked like a banshee. “Nooooo! Draugs — kill — them — all!”
Then, before we knew what was happening, Hela hurtled through the air and came down hard in the middle of the Draugs, knocking them all down like bowling pins.
“What?” I gasped.
And there was Baldur, dusting his hands together. “Hela’s heavier than she looks! I didn’t come too early, did I?”
“Right on time!” shouted Sydney.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Baldur said. “My ship makes return trips, you know!”
In a flash of speed, we sprinted back through the passage, up and down stairs, and out the castle gate. We scrambled onto the ship, and pushed off into the crazy sequence of rivers that brought us there, all before Hela and her Draugs could catch us.
“Up the eleven rivers — to home!” Jon yelled.
My heart was in my throat. I held on to Dana as if my life depended on it, and she held on to Sydney and Jon. The Runsons clung to Baldur and screamed the
whole way back. We flew from river to river, up into our own world. Pinewood Bluffs still smoked and smoldered. But our journey wasn’t over. We slid through the black rocks as easily as the first time, and Asgard was in view now, its fields peaceful, its shore teeming with heroes.
“There it is!” cried Mrs. Runson, clutching her husband tight. “I can’t believe we’re actually seeing it.”
As the ship approached, Odin and Thor came running to the shore. The ship docked and we set foot on solid ground. The huge field of gods and heroes gave out a thunderous cheer that seemed to last forever.
“I live!” said Baldur, and Odin, Thor, and the Valkyries all embraced him.
“My son is alive!” Odin boomed. “Children, you have my eternal allegiance. The bells of doom shall not ring today. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will come!”
“Owen, look,” Dana whispered, pointing out a hooded figure dressed in black racing across the rainbow bridge toward us.
“The stranger,” I said.
The man ran up the hill directly to us. He wasn’t large, not built like a god, though I knew he was half-god. Breathing hard, he pulled back his hood with slender fingers to reveal a sad but kind face, a mop of brown hair, and a garland of sharp-edged leaves banding his forehead.
Hades, as large as he was, bowed before the thin man. “And it comes full circle.”
“Allow me, Owen Brown,” said the man. “I believe what you are holding belongs to me. I am Orpheus.”
I knew it.
The Runsons gasped. Dana clutched my arm. Jon’s and Sydney’s jaws fell open. My knees buckled under me. Luckily, Baldur was there to hold me up.
I bowed and held out the lyre. “Orpheus, I’m sorry. I had to … sort of … chop it in half.”
Surprisingly, Orpheus smiled when he took the pieces of the lyre into his hands. “You’ll have to do a lot more damage to stop this thing.” With a quick flash of his fingers, he restored the lyre to its original shape, playing all seven strings brightly as if they were brand-new. “You play it well. We all thank you.”