D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

Saint Dane gave up trying to stop it and shot me a look of hatred that froze the blood in my veins. “This isn’t the end, Pendragon,” he seethed.

“Don’t be sad, Saint Dane,” I said. “This is the way it was meant to be.”

Saint Dane looked as if he were about to erupt with anger. His icy blue eyes flashed with hatred. I must have pushed a pretty raw button to get him that ticked off. Loor thought he was going to attack us because she took a threatening step toward him, daring him to charge. I think he might have done it too, but he took a quick look around at the rapidly growing fire and decided to back off.

“Until next time,” he said, then turned and ran out into the Milago tunnel.

The sparkling ring of tak fire was growing larger by the second. It was like a fuse that couldn’t be stopped as it got closer and closer to setting off the mother of all bombs. I had no idea how much time we had, but if we had any hope of surviving we had to get out of there.

“The flume!” I said and ran toward the tunnel. Loor was right after me. We hit the mine tunnel and ran straight for the gate that led to the flume. The wooden door was already open because Saint Dane had the same idea. As I was about to turn into the doorway I heard Saint Dane inside.

“Cloral!” he yelled into the flume.

We ran inside the gate in time to see the sparkling light that was Saint Dane disappear into the depths of the flume on his way to…

“What is Cloral?” I asked.

“It must be another territory,” Loor answered.

“Let’s not go there, okay?” I said. “We should go-” Before I had the chance to say another word, we both saw something in the flume. The sparkling lights and musical notes were heading our way. Was Saint Dane coming back? As the lights grew closer, I heard a sound that didn’t make sense. It sounded like…water. We took a curious step closer to the flume and saw that it wasn’t a Traveler headed our way at all. It was an actual rush of water coming through the flume. What was Saint Dane doing? Was he trying to put the fire out?

The answer was no. He was trying to prevent us from escaping through the flume. But it wasn’t just water he was sending back. There was somethingin the water, and it had teeth. Swimming toward us through the flume was a giant shark! As impossible as it sounds, the thing must have been twenty feet long and was headed straight for us, jaws first. There was one other thing I remember: It had vicious, glowing yellow eyes.

We didn’t have time to move and were both hit with the crushing wave of water. The force hit us so hard that it sent us both hurtling back out of the gate and slammed us against the far wall of the tunnel. That force of water was the only thing that saved us. If we had stayed at the mouth of the flume, we would have been rudely introduced to shark teeth. I got my head together, grabbed Loor and pulled her to the side just in time because the huge yellow-eyed shark was propelled out of the gate and it smashed, head first, into the far wall of the tunnel. It was now a fish out of water, literally. It squirmed and thrashed in the mine tunnel and its giant jaws bit at the air only a few feet from our heads. I tried to crawl away, but saw that Loor was unconscious. She must have smashed her head when she hit the wall. I grabbed hold of her and was able to drag her farther back into the tunnel and safety.

Did I say safety? We may have gotten out of range of the monster shark, but the fuse was still burning on the tak mine. We had nowhere to go. We couldn’t get to the flume because there was three thousand pounds of thrashing shark in the way. We couldn’t get back through the small tunnel to the Bedoowan castle because of the cave-in. The only place we could go was deeper into the mine. To make things worse, if that was possible, Loor was unconscious.

I tried to shake her awake, but it was no go. Her lights were out and I was looking down at a deadweight. It’s amazing what adrenaline will do, because I stood up and was actually able to pick her up and get her on my back in a fireman’s carry. I had no idea how much time we had left, but moving slowly was not an option. I tried to run with her, but it was hard. I couldn’t get very far this way. We got past the entrance to the tak mine and I glanced in to see that the entire floor was ablaze. The place looked alive with mad fireflies as the tak dust sputtered and burned. I didn’t take the time to stop and admire it though. I had to get us farther into the mine.

That’s when I saw something that could help. It was the wooden ore car. If this thing still moved I could put Loor inside and push her the way Alder had pushed us before. With Loor still on my back I gave the car a kick. It moved! Yes! Without worrying about being gentle, I dumped Loor into the empty car. I didn’t think she’d mind a few bruises under the circumstances. I quickly jumped to the back of the car and pushed. It moved slowly at first, but with each turn of the small wheels it picked up speed. I kept both hands on the car while pumping my legs like a football lineman hitting a blocking sled. I went from a crawl, to a walk, to a jog, and finally to a run. I had no idea where this tunnel would lead, but we were on our way.

The thought flashed through my head that we might hit a piece of damaged track that would send the car crashing into the wall. I also feared that the tunnel would reach a dead end that we’d hit at full speed. That would hurt. Or a wheel could fall off. Or…or…I thought of a million other things that could derail our escape, but none of them mattered. This trip wasn’t about caution, it was about speed. If we had any hope of surviving, we had to get as far away from that burning vein of tak as possible.

And then I heard it. It started as a rumble and quickly grew like an earthquake. It felt like a freight train was barreling up from behind, but I knew what it was. The burning dust had finally reached the large deposit of tak. The chain reaction had begun. The rumble was actually a series of small explosions, and those small explosions would set off bigger explosions. And bigger and bigger until…well, there would be a very big bang. I didn’t stop to think about it. If anything it made me push harder. I could feel the ground shudder. The finale of this baby was going to be a thousand on the Richter scale.

On the battlefield the miners and the knights felt it too. Alder described it as the ground beginning to move under his feet. The fighting continued until they realized the shaking wasn’t going to stop. One by one they dropped their weapons and backed away from each other. There was now a more frightening enemy.

Queen Kagan stood on her throne and threw a fit because the fighting had ended. Before she had the chance to order anyone to continue the battle, the ground shook and knocked her throne over. She tumbled down right along with it, and lay flat on the ground, scared to death. The rest of the Bedoowans and the Novans did the same thing. They all fell to the ground in fear. The fun and games were over.

Uncle Press and Alder didn’t move. They knew it was futile to seek shelter, so they stood together and waited for the end. They weren’t going to have to wait long.

The rumbling grew louder. It began to sound more like deep, booming explosions. As I pushed the cart with every bit of energy I had, I began to feel heat at my back. The tak mine was probably a blast furnace by now. I’m sure the shark was already roasted. It wouldn’t be long before the whole mine blew.

Up ahead the tunnel was growing brighter. We were reaching the end, but I had no idea what that meant because I was crouched down behind the ore car pushing for all I was worth. Still, whatever was up there meant we had a shot at getting out, so I dug down even deeper and pumped my legs even harder. The faster we moved, the brighter the tunnel became. We were definitely nearing the end. Now the tunnel was shaking so violently that I was afraid it would throw the ore car off the track. If we didn’t get to the end soon, it would definitely be the end for us.