The Keep of Ages (The Vault of Dreamers #3)

I could swear a bizarre show has started, just for me. I hear an amplified cricket noise. Then another. The chirping continues with a layer of static from a recording. Next, a gurgling, rusty sound comes from the bottom of the moat, and then fog drifts up, filling the moat below the bridges.

Then, from above, a loud, drawn-out creaking noise heralds the opening of a trapdoor that extends outward from the center roof of the keep. It lowers on two chains until it juts forward like a diving platform or the plank of a pirate ship.

Now the dragon fully awakens. It rolls its shoulders so its wings partially unfurl. It coils an arm more securely around the spire and leans its head forward toward the plank, moving more naturally than any mechanical puppet ever could.

Half a dozen purple and white spotlights are now trained on the plank, and a drumroll signals an event. As the figure of a small girl glides out on the plank, my heart catches in my throat. She’s pale and motionless, standing with her eyes closed and her arms at her sides. Her gray gown flutters slightly in the breeze, and her blond hair shifts lightly around her shoulders. Otherwise she doesn’t move. She shines with ethereality, and the staging would be beautiful except for one ghastly truth: she’s my sister.

She’s Dubbs. Up there.

Ready to fall.

And all of a sudden, I can’t think of effects anymore. My sister is far too real.

“No!” I whisper, staggering forward. I’m afraid to call out, afraid any noise will disturb her balance.

She’s forty or fifty feet up, and a fall into the foggy moat would kill her. The dragon uncoils slightly to inspect Dubbs. It cocks its head and slowly extends its neck forward. If she turns to look at it, she’ll be only a couple of yards away from its big head. But she doesn’t turn her head. She doesn’t seem to move at all, as if she’s suspended in a trance.

Go back, Dubbs! I think. Get down on your hands and knees and crawl back inside.

Another breeze shifts her gown, and she sways with it. I can’t stand it.

“Dubbs!” I shout. I bolt toward the nearest bridge of blue stairs. “Dubbs! Hang on! I’m coming!”

The girl above turns her head slightly in my direction and her eyes fly open. They’re wide and frantic, and she lets out a scream. She crouches down to the plank and grips it with both hands. The dragon backs up slightly and flares its wings wide. Dubbs now turns toward the dragon and screams again with wild terror.

I’m frozen on the stairs, watching in agony. Much as I want to run inside the keep and up to the roof to save her, she could slip any second, and I can’t go farther up without losing sight of her. If only I could distract the dragon.

“Hold on! Just hold on!” I yell to Dubbs. Then I wave my arms. “Dragon! Over here!” I yell. “Dragon!”

But the dragon doesn’t see me or doesn’t care. It rises up on its back legs and flaps its heavy wings. Dubbs hugs the plank with all her might. Her gown ripples again, and she looks impossibly small and helpless. The dragon opens its mouth and lets out an earsplitting cry, and Dubbs catches her breath and screams once more.

“Dragon!” I yell furiously. “I’m over here!”

It leans its head back and lets out another roar toward the sky. A blast of fire comes out of its mouth, scorching the air above the keep. Wind swirls savagely around Dubbs, who struggles to keep her grip, and then, with a final scream, she’s blown off her perch. She topples into the dark night air and pinwheels down toward the moat.

In shock and horror, I run against the banister, and then, just as Dubbs is about to hit the ground, the dragon swoops down and catches her in its claws, soaring with her back up into the sky.

I can’t breathe. For another moment, Dubbs and the dragon are visible in the night sky above the keep. The dragon makes an awkward, dipping circle, as if adjusting to the weight in its claws. Then it flies out of the spotlights, disappearing into the night. The spotlights go off. The lights on the steps, too. The entire area around the keep is plunged into darkness. Even the sole, caged light bulb that hangs above the heavy wooden door is out.

They’re gone.

They were real. They couldn’t be real. My mind’s racing with confusion.

“Dubbs!” I cry.

Where is she? My helplessness tortures me. I search the night sky but I can’t see anything in the wan moonlight. Then, silently, a single, finely focused spotlight turns on and shines down into the moat, exactly at the spot where Dubbs would have landed when she fell. I lean over the railing, peering closely as the fog shifts. A hole has opened in the bottom of the moat. An opening. A drain, possibly.

Gripping the railing, I swing myself over and wade through the fog to the middle of the moat. A gurgling comes from a dark circle below the spotlit fog. I touch forward with my toe and feel the edge of a void.

What on earth is happening? A dragon that I believed was a special effect tormented my sister and flew away with her. Could Dubbs have been a special effect, too? She looked so real! And now a trapdoor has opened in an empty moat. My mind is still racing, surging with adrenaline and horror, and I can barely make sense out of anything.

But here’s what I do know: ever since I stepped into Grisly, I’ve had the feeling that someone’s been watching me. If this stunt with the dragon was a spectacle just for me, then whoever concocted it might just relish traumatizing me, but also they might be trying to tell me where to go. Whoever it is must know something about Dubbs.

Grimly, I realize what I have to do. I take a deep breath and step forward.





10



THE WHISTLER

I TOPPLE INTO THE HOLE SIDEWAYS, smashing my arm on some unyielding barrier. Then I’m falling down a wide, slanting pipe. I hit a bend, but there’s nothing for me to grab on to, and as I keep sliding down, faster and faster, I duck my head in my arms and let out a scream. It’s too dark to see anything. For half a second, my backpack snags me up on something. Then I rip free and I’m falling again. The chute follows a swift, mind-spinning spiral down until I’m disgorged onto a large metal grate. I skid across the bars and bang to a stop.

“Ouch!” I say.

I blink hard in the darkness and struggle to catch my breath. My elbow is sore. My knee, too.

A trickling noise matches a scent of moist stone. Cautiously, I crawl forward toward the trickle, and a faint green luminosity guides me to the edge of an underground gully with a shallow, fragrant stream. Above, gray stone arches unevenly in organic curves. The light comes from the water, where bits of green flicker at the edges of rounded stones. Bioluminescence, I think. Microbes live in the stream. Burnham talked about them once, back when we were at Forge, but I didn’t know I’d ever see the shimmering effect myself.

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