Chapter 1: The City and The Grotto with The Creature In It
It was the first week of October and Matthew Modell was walking down Pierro Avenue with his hands stuffed in his pockets and the wind at his back. The sun had barely risen and hovered just above the line of grey buildings like a hazy, pale eye, that seemed to radiate the miserable October cold despite its natural purpose.
Useless, contradictory.
Matthew Modell looked up at it and then back at the street ahead.
There were only two other people in sight: a homeless woman propped against a bundle of ragged suitcases in a way that made her look dead and a jogger who had stopped to fiddle with his earbuds. Matthew Modell felt a flicker of wicked interest at the sight of the possible body but passed them both quickly– his long legs cutting the squares of the sidewalk in half as he strode over them. He turned sharply into an alley, paused at the mouth, and looked back out into the street.
The jogger pounded past without looking.
The homeless woman’s foot jerked slightly.
Matthew Modell felt a tinge of disappointment and checked for anyone else.
Nothing.
He moved further in, leaning against wall so covered in graffiti that all of it had faded together– his hair a splotch of bright auburn against it
Heart thudding in his ears, Matthew Modell– known as “Muddle” for reasons he refused to mention even to those he pretended to like– pulled his right hand from his pocket and watched The Ring flash in the pale, freezing light. The slender gold band hummed against his skin. Low, inaudible humming.
It carried a kind of impossible sturdiness compared to its slender build and seemed to reflect light from similarly impossible angles. Sharp, fantastic angles. And, when Muddle looked at it, something bright and powerful rippled up through his fingers.
Which came as no surprise, considering The Ring was magic.
Muddle slid the pad of his left pointer along the curve and sighed, trying not to shiver from the cold. A car rumbled past and Muddle blinked slowly, scrutinizing the mouth of the alley with sharp indecision.
“I guess–” he said quietly and then paused as the not-dead homeless woman slogged past.
A shake of his head. There was no use avoiding the thing he had come here to do… So he focused on the opposite wall until he found the place where the wall itself shimmered ever so slightly, and stepped through.
The city around him dissolved into a high, glittering ceiling that reflected the delicate patterns of the wide, meandering stream below. The pale, cold light becoming rich, thick darkness with visibility as sharp and easy to see through as the middle of a sunny day. The sounds of distant traffic and the emptiness of the early morning streets swelled into the sourceless music he’d been hearing ever since he’d first come here– a long, drawling sound Muddle couldn’t associate with any one instrument… One that sent The Ring humming and jerking on his finger so that Muddle flinched and looked down at it.
After a moment, The Ring settled back into the steady thrum he was accustomed to and Muddle edged further in.
The Grotto was warmer than he remembered and Muddle resisted the urge to strip off his jacket, instead stepping further away from the shimmering space behind him. All around him were the same gloomy shapes of the underground pines, the mountains of treasure– peppered with gold and precious gems and objects too wonderful and odd for him to know the true value of– and the same two “landmarks”: a single dark pine the size of a small building with bows that groaned under their own weight and the massive, open-mouthed skeleton of a Dragon half submerged in one of the larger mounds of treasure.
Muddle shuddered despite himself and closed his right hand into a fist. The Ring dug into his finger– powerful, solid.
Real.
He inhaled slowly,
It happened. It is happening. These three weeks, they’ve all been–
Somewhere in the The Grotto he thought he heard a very large thing stir and his breath caught in his throat. His left hand darted to touch the ring as the music played on uninterrupted. A beat. Muddle swallowed, gripped again by the familiar feeling of how wrong his presence here was– How he’d never wanted to hear the haunting sounds of the playerless music or see that hideous skeleton…
His ears were pulsing with his own heartbeat and the imagined sound of his mind repeating,
youshouldn’tbehereyoushouldn’tbehereyoushouldn’t–
But the dream— And those sounds– He needed to–
“Back again?”
A huge, oozing head materialized in the darkness, The Creature’s spiny, tricky body following suit– spraying ribbons of inky slurry that smelled like a mixture of gasoline and sugary fruit-punch.
Muddle froze, unable to scream as The Creature dipped its massive head towards him. The Creature peered at him through through its foggy eyes, snorted, and then laughed– splattering Muddle with a ribbon of slurry so thick it almost knocked him over. Stumbling backwards, his mouth parted and small squeak of air escaped.
“Wha–?”
“Is that all?” the Creature said and rolled back onto its haunches so that the tips of its head-spines scraped the ceiling of The Grotto, “I thought you’d have more to say in your defense, Insect– Considering you felt it necessary to steal one of my beloved treasures.”
The Creature pulled its mouth into a curious, dangerous expression: something like a smile but too weighted with a secret intent to be reassuring.
“I would have even accepted– No, make that preferred– begging to an explanation but–”
“I– D-d-don’t–” he managed and cleared his throat quickly, recovering with a quiet but firm, “I didn’t steal anything.”
He felt The Ring sing through him as he tightened his fist.
“Interrupting is one thing, but interrupting and lying all in the same breath…”
The Creature let out a long, labored sigh and thrust its head towards him again– hitting him with another spray of slurry, which sent him sprawling into a mound of treasure with a cry and a clatter.
“Whatever you are, Insect, you seem to be immeasurably stupid,” it said, with thinly veiled amusement, “So I’ll– perhaps– humor you for a moment: Do you know who I am?”
Muddle shook his head before he even considered the question. The Creature sighed again,
“Stupid and a Liar,” The Creature let out a small laugh, the slurry dribbling down its plated neck, “But I can work around that, I can work around anything,” something flashed in its foggy, glowing eyes, “Do you know what I am?”
“You’re,” Muddle did his best not to shake, “You’re a Dragon.”
“Stupid then, but not so stupid– Perhaps just foolish…”
Muddle was trying to stand up as inconspicuously as possible, his eyes darting to the shimmer he’d come through. But the slurry was thick and it seemed as though it were trying to pull him into it.
“I wouldn’t try that,” The Creature said, it’s eyes following his own to the shimmer. Another soft laugh. It extended it massive right hand over him and Muddle dropped into a crouch, cowering for a moment before he realize The Creature was reaching for the shimmer. It laughed again.
“Cowardly, Not-so-Stupid, Liar, Insect… I’m almost curious enough to bother asking what it is, exactly you are,” it passed its claws over the shimmer, which rippled violently before it disappeared. Then, ignoring the noise of protest from Muddle, continued, “I do have some questions for you though– But they’re mostly about that Ring and not about you. But first…”
The Creature leaned towards him,
“Give me back my Ring, Insect.”
“I d–” Muddle started and then paused, staring down at his hands. His face looked puckered for a moment and then relaxed as if he had come to some dark revelation.
The Creature towered above him and he kept his eyes on the ground so he wouldn’t shake when he spoke,
“Why do you want it? If you’re so powerful then why would you even–”
His fingers were beginning to trace the rim of The Ring– It sang through him to make and to take and– He tried to imagine The Creature as something else, something terrible and small and–
“Are you trying,” The Creature’s said in a kind of bemused disbelief, “To use my own magic against me?”
With a low purr it plucked him off the ground and held him eye level between two of its massive claws; their tips cutting into him carelessly. He tried to scream, to struggle, but couldn’t. The Creature watched him struggle with a look of muted satisfaction. Muddle’s face felt hot and twitchy.
“Put m-me d– I wasn’t– You can’t–” he managed to shout, his voice high and desperate from the pain, “You can’t–”
“I’m taking back what I said before, Insect, you are Stupid after all,” it dug its claw-tips deeper and Muddle grimaced as he felt something warm seeping through his undershirt, “I would suggest showing a flicker of sense and apologizing before I dispose of every part of you that isn’t holding my Ring.”
It tapped one claw from its free hand against its chin,
“That’s not to say I won’t still dispose of you after you give me back my ring but,” The Creature shrugged, “It will probably improve the speed and quality of the disposing method.”
Muddle’s eyes widened and he tried, again, to struggle, groaning as The Creature tightened its grip.
“If you’re so m-magical,” he hissed, his left hand closing over his right stiffly, “Why d-d-do you even need it? Couldn’t you just m-make another one? I just–”
”Coward. Stupid. Liar. Insect. And now Impudent. You must really want what’s coming to you now…”
Muddle’s focus shifted as The Ring sang through him again, and he tried to direct it towards The Creature. Make it small. Do it quickly. Do it now– But The Creature remained as large and oozing as before.
Why isn’t it working? he thought, his mind burning with fear. Was he going to die in The Grotto–?
Before I just had to concentrate and– But nothing’s happening, why is–?
Gritting his teeth in a mixture of pain and concentration, he made one last, grand attempt to push the sensation of the humming into The Creature– The Grotto was swallowed by a flash of harsh, burning light. Muddle’s ears rung with a sharp whining sound that echoed out and back again until it was little more than a muffled version of itself, and he felt his body spasm and twist with the noise. It shuddered through him– His bones bucking up and crumpling and– he was certain– shattering from the force– He couldn’t breath– Something was squeezing the air out of him– The sound or the heat or the light or The Creature or– What had, he thought, been the sounds of his own screams rising until…
In an instant it was over and Muddle found himself submerged in a new, non-transparent darkness with only the sounds of his own breathing. Something soft and familiar pressed against him. And, in that moment of near silence, he almost believed he had escaped– Or, at the very least woken from a terrible, long dream. But then The Creature spoke, its voice booming from all around him,
“You’ve really done it now, Insect.”
