The Dragon's Tooth by N. D. Wilson

Author:N. D. Wilson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-08-22T21:00:00+00:00

twelve

BURIAL

CYRUS DUCKED OUT of the door. Inching along the shadowy planks, he stopped at the showers. The faint glow from Nolan’s lantern barely reached his feet, giving him just enough light to see what he was doing. Gripping the three charms and the key ring tight, he stuck the shafts of the two keys into the nearest falling stream of water. He could see nothing in the splashing, but his arm grew suddenly heavy. Breathing hard, he slid back from the edge and looked at the keys in his hand.

Greeves hadn’t lied.

One gold, one silver, but shaped like no keys he had ever seen, and heavier than they had any right to be. The gold one had a hollow triangle at its head, a square in its center, and a circle at its end. Smooth teeth lined its shaft on every side. The silver one was thin and bent like an elongated and slightly corkscrewing crescent moon. Some kind of writing, shaped like Arabic, had been etched into its surface, but Cyrus wasn’t going back to the light for a closer look.

Dropping the heavy keys into his pocket, he made his way into the deep blackness of the Polygon.

Once Cyrus had managed to open the door and hop barefoot over the flooded threshold, he had enough nervous energy to rush the stairs, skipping slippery steps as he went. The hallway above was dimly lit, and he found his way quickly back into the big blue-glowing room beneath the water maze. From there, rather than trying to retrace Mrs. Eldridge’s route, he headed for the iron spiral stairs he’d seen earlier, cobwebbed into a dark corner. His bare feet scuffed through heavy dust on the cold stone floor and found the metal stairs. The treads were rough with rust blisters, and Cyrus climbed slowly, his heart pounding against his molars.

He wound his way above the thick glass ceiling and into a tall shaft. Two of the walls were glass, with views into the maze, and the higher Cyrus climbed, the more terrifying the maze became. It was as tall as it had been wide—a full cube—with underwater tunnels tangled in an impossible three-dimensional knot of drowning potential.

Cyrus reached the top and stepped out into a high-ceilinged room with a single dangling light in its center, glowing like the moon. The floor was tiled around the edges, but the entire center was glass, sealing the water maze in all but two small open hatches in opposite corners—an entrance and an exit, with a whole lot of wet death in between.

Cyrus moved toward the closer one, trying to imagine what it would be like to drop in and swim into total confusion. The water rippled slightly at his feet, and his chest tightened. What would it feel like to have panicked lungs fill with water? His father knew.

Something moved beneath the glass. A quick shadow. And then water erupted at Cyrus’s feet, and arms slapped at the tiled edge. Cyrus yelled, jumped backward, slipped, and sat down.

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