Chapter 27
The rocks splashed with tremendous force, and from behind the fall, the dragon screeched like a bird in distress.
Its fire poured through the fall but had no effect on the rocks.
The falling rocks began to taper as a thick, sludge-like substance began to pour from the opening above, picking the rocks up as it oozed.
In the silver light, the substance was black and shiny with rough, uneven grain trapped inside.
The ooze dripped in globs, and the dragon, which had briefly stopped blowing fire, reignited as a loud glob splashed into the water.
The flame seemed to melt the tar-like substance and caused it to run at a greater speed from the rock spout above.
“Let’s move while we can,” Blinkem said, taking Alice’s hand.
Tinkerton was busy at the back of his copper man, turning keys that clicked like a winding clock.
“Wait,” Alice said as the dragon scratched from behind the waterfall of black gritty oil. “It’s frightened,” she added, speaking over its terrified screech.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Blinkem said, just as he had said about the mice, and a new sound began to spill from the fall: sand, clumpy and wet at first, and then a swell of dry sand sliding and splashing into the water.
The dragon’s fire shone blue, and as it struck the sand, the sand immediately liquefied into glass that stretched out toward Blinkem like petals of flowers stretching toward the sun.
It made a terrible cracking sound and, astonishingly, turned to stone.
The stone stretched down into the water below, which began to harden, and sand poured over it like concrete.
Tinkerton turned and began to drag his creation by its stiff copper arm from where the sand spilled.
“The sand! Get back!” he screamed. Alice was pulled away by Blinkem as the shrieking dragon continued to blow fire behind the strange stone column that formed from the sand.
In only moments, the hardening sand, activated by the fire, stretched upward and formed a seal in the rocks above from where it fell.
Once sealed, all the sand had turned into stone, completely blocking the dragon’s cave and waterfall.
The pool was gone, leaving only a rock floor.
“What just happened?” Alice asked Tinkerton, who clutched his chest and leaned on the copper man before the stone sculpture.
“Sands of death! It’s a myth. At least, it was.
The river above us is said to have sands in the bedrock that transform anything it touches into stone.
” Alice recognized the phenomenon, thinking of the guard back at Guinevere’s manor with skin that peeled from his stone body.
Tinkerton still marveled in amazement. “We will be hailed for this discovery!” he shouted, his big grin shining in the silver light.
“If we are alive,” Blinkem said. The clawing and squawking coming from behind the rock hurt inside Alice’s stomach.
“We need to free her,” Alice said.
“How do you know it’s a her?” Tinkerton asked.
“I don’t, but that is beside the point,” Alice replied.
“She was trying to kill us, just as a reminder,” Blinkem said, in a tone that Alice didn’t care for.
“She was frightened of two creatures that invaded her home. Once she knew you were harmless, she made no attempt to burn you. Now, you are the inventor, how do we break her out?”
“Firstly, you are correct. My apologies,” Tinkerton said, with a humble nod. “Secondly, thank you. I like to consider myself an inventor, but…”
“Do you have a solution?” Blinkem asked with a dry force from the edge of the cavern. He felt the walls—looking for a way out, Alice figured.
“I do indeed,” Tinkerton said, turning back around to begin screwing with the twist keys at the back of the copper man. Blinkem exhaled loudly and resumed his search for an exit.
“What can that do?” Alice asked as the dragon screeched again from behind the rock. She went to try to calm it by speaking through the rock, reaching her hand to the newly made boulder. “We are going to set you free. Do try to be calm.”
Before Alice could place her hand on the rock, Tinkerton shouted, “Do not touch!” Alice held her hand firmly on the rock before he finished. He cocked his head. “I’d have thought…”
“I would turn to stone?”
“Yes!” Tinkerton shouted, causing Blinkem to flinch. The sudden shuffle and movement from Blinkem caught Tinkerton’s attention. “Do you also have sensitive ears?” Tinkerton asked earnestly.
“Very,” Blinkem said, his irritation evident.
Tinkerton nodded, unfazed, then turned back to Alice. “How did you know you would not become a statue?” he asked, mystified.
“The dragon scratches at the rock; she was not turned to stone, so it is safe,” Alice said.
“Of course.” Tinkerton laughed to himself and cranked the keys of the figure again. Suddenly, the copper man’s heavy eyelids popped open with a metallic pang, revealing sea-glass-colored orbs. A gentle ticking came from inside of him, like a trusty pocket watch.
“How may I be of service?” He spoke mechanically, and his mustache twitched up and down in sync with the voice that came from within the machine.
Alice laughed, delighted. Although the copper man was stern in his modeling, the saucer helmet and potbelly, in combination with the gesticulating mustache, were all too wonderful.
“How have you animated him?” Alice marveled.
“He’s not animated. He is alive. The same silver that glows at your feet. He has a rock of it, about the size your fist, inside his brain box here.” Tinkerton knocked on his head, and the captain swiveled his head slightly.
“Can we get on with it?” Blinkem asked, incredibly irritated.
Tinkerton nodded and turned to the copper man. “Captain, the rock column here. There is a young dragon that requires our assistance breaking free,” Tinkerton said flamboyantly, like a ventriloquist showboating his prized dummy, though indeed the copper man was far more spectacular.
“It is my honor,” the copper captain said, and with a loud clanking across the stone, he walked—well, tottered unevenly—as his hefty platform feet on pump springs pivoted back and forth toward the stone.
Blinkem, now as interested as Alice, watched the robotic gentleman, who neatly balled his expertly engineered hands.
Then, as a sound like air rushing from a balloon escaped him, his body dropped down low between his legs, bracing him tightly to the ground.
Like a hand-operated tin-boxing man from a penny story, he began to pound like a jackhammer on the rock.
Rocks flew like shrapnel. Blinkem and Tinkerton knew to duck before Alice did.
She crouched low at the entrance of the tunnel and listened to the hammering of the small but powerful copper man.
The rocks continued to fly, while she kept her head covered by her arms should any stray stones scatter to the corridor.
The speed intensified, and the cave began to fill with smoke.
Tinkerton coughed and shouted for all to cover their noses and mouths.
The hammering went on a few minutes more and then came the sound of a large rock slamming against the floor of the cave.
“Stop there!” shouted Tinkerton. “We don’t want to loosen the rocks above! ”
The copper man ceased hammering, and the sound of air pressure returned.
He stood upright with his arms at his sides, and then came the clear sound of the dragon’s clicking.
It crawled through the perfectly chiseled hole, which was about the size of the copper man himself.
It slithered from the cave and wrapped around the captain, rubbing its feathers across his body.
“She is most grateful for the excellent work, Captain,” Tinkerton said.
Alice approached in amazement, both at the copper man and the dragon that hugged him. “What is his name?”
“Hello, I am Captain,” the man said, his head rotating 90 degrees to meet Alice. She jumped in surprise, then laughed again at his mustached face up close.
“Pleased to meet you, I am Alice,” she said, and held out her hand.
“Gently shake Miss Alice’s hand,” Tinkerton instructed, and the robot did so. His hand was engineered like an artist’s wooden hand model, and hot from pounding stones.
“There is a door,” Blinkem said, walking swiftly to the opening. His movement caused the dragon’s feathers to fluff, and it hissed.
“She is like a cat, or a bird and cat,” Alice said, smiling at herself for the ridiculous comparison, but she knew she was right.
“Do not approach too swiftly until she trusts you. Let her smell you and pet her head where she can see you and your hand,” she said, crossing her arms and waiting for the exchange.
“No,” Blinkem said with agitation. Alice looked at him with a furrowed brow, then noticed his shifting weight. It was fear, not agitation.
“Here, like this.” Alice took Blinkem’s arm and guided him to kneel, cooing to the creature.
“Hello, girl,” she said quietly, and guided his hand with hers on top of its head.
The dragon purred and clicked loudly, and its nose flickered with blue light.
Blinkem at first jerked, but Alice kept his hand held there.
“Say hello,” she said softly to him, her fingers spreading between his.
The dragon purred, and Blinkem looked to Alice, silver light reflecting in his cranberry eyes. “Hello,” he said softly to Alice and a smile grew across his face. For a moment, Alice stayed looking into his eyes. “Impossible,” he said.
“What is?” Alice asked as her smile grew just from looking at his.
“You…” His eyes searched her, and her damp skin prickled. “You have tamed a dragon.”
“She reminds me of my cat,” Alice said. The purr was still running up through her fingers, and with it a small green ghost of a memory—a cat on a windowsill in another world, insisting on exactly this spot on her head, in exactly this way.
“Dinah,” she said to the creature. The dragon clicked. “Well, that settles it. You are Dinah.”
If it was odd to give a dragon the name of a cat, no one said so, and the dragon, who had never been asked her opinion of anything, blinked her green eyes slowly, the way cats do when they have decided you may stay.
Blinkem looked from the dragon to Alice as though weighing which of the two was the more dangerous animal.
He was not wrong to take his time over it.
“Her voice box is made of a material like flint,” Tinkerton said, breaking the moment.
Alice lifted her hand from Blinkem’s but was left feeling very unsteady—lightheaded, even.
“When it vibrates, it sparks, but it only torches when it chooses to do so. That’s what you’re seeing there.
She’s happy, though, it would seem. So, no danger!
” Tinkerton slapped Blinkem on the back.
Blinkem jumped abruptly, and Tinkerton laughed.
“Tinkerton, it is unkind to jest with someone who experiences fear,” Alice said, standing up to him and folding her arms. His face fell quickly.
“I’m sorry, Miss Alice. You are right, it wasn’t meant.” Tinkerton turned to Blinkem, who wore a scowl.
“I’m not experiencing fear,” he said. Whatever moment they’d shared was now snuffed out by his injured pride.
Tinkerton grinned slightly. “Of course not, pal.”
Alice had had enough of their poking one another and began to climb through the hole in the rock wall into the dragon’s cave.
Inside, there were mounds of molded organic material, grass of some sort, pushed up against one side of the wall—and, at the back of it all, a door that resembled a bank vault.
“Would you be so kind,” she called through the hole, “as to help me with this door?”