Fluff Dragon by Platte F. Clark

Author:Platte F. Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GUESSING GAMES

THEY STOOD IN A SMALL room with two heavy doors. On either side of the doors, the bearded face of a giant dwarf guardian was carved into the wall: one looking down with clenched teeth and a furrowed brow, as if it was about to go into battle, the other with a large smile as if he had just come across a great treasure.

“This is bad,” Ratticus said as they shut the main door behind them. “I’ve heard of these locks before, but I’ve never seen one.”

“Face locks?” Dirk asked.

“No,” Ratticus answered as he stroked his mustache. “Dwarven probability locks.”

“Probability locks?” Sarah repeated, looking at the two doors.

“Yes,” Ratticus continued. “The only lock that can’t be picked.”

“I don’t understand,” Max said.

“Let me explain,” the thief said. “We have two doors in front of us. If we pick the correct one, we will enter the vaults. If we pick the wrong one, we will die instantly. They are both unlocked.”

“It’s like a puzzle,” Dirk said, looking around for clues. But the only thing in the room besides the large carvings of the dwarf heads were the patterns in the walls giving off the subdued blue light.

“It doesn’t seem like a very effective lock,” Sarah said. “I mean, you have a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right one.”

“Or picking the wrong one,” Loki said, poking his head out of Max’s backpack.

“And that’s just it,” Ratticus said. “A lock that is always open—there is no challenge to a thief here. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of locks you’ve picked before. You choose correctly or you die, and those are not the kind of odds a well-trained thief accepts.”

“It’s simply luck,” Sarah said. “Anybody could do it.”

“So nobody does,” Max said, starting to understand.

“Unless there’s a key to it all—a pattern of some kind,” Sarah said, slightly annoyed that she might be agreeing with Dirk.

“Exactly!” Dirk exclaimed. “Like counting the number of teeth on the mad dwarf’s face and then dividing by two.”

“Or following their eyes,” Loki added, staring at the carving of the happy dwarf. “Maybe they’re looking at the right one?”

“Can you touch them?” Max asked Ratticus. “Maybe one is warm and one is cold?”

Loki scratched at his ear. “Or if you listen closely, you might hear something on the other side.”

Ratticus shrugged. “It’s all quite possible.”

“Oh, oh, I know!” Dirk called out. “It’s not either door! They’re both fakes, and the real one is triggered by a secret latch or something.”

“Here we stand before two unlocked doors,” Ratticus said, “and we are no closer to knowing which to open.”

Max had read a million fantasy books with puzzles like this, or played them online with Dirk. There was always a key somewhere. And then Glenn spoke up, as if reading his mind. “The key to a locked door is always found in the last place you look,” he said. Everyone stopped and turned to the magical dagger.

“Glenn, do you know the answer to this?” Sarah asked. “Do you know where the key is?”

Glenn shrugged his tiny, ivory shoulders.

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