Alex Bell - Fighting with fire
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- Название:Fighting with fire
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- Год:неизвестен
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- Рейтинг книги:4 / 5. Голосов: 1
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‘This is a stupid round,’ Lex said bluntly. He knew it wouldn’t make any difference, but he felt the pressing need to express his displeasure, anyway.
‘It’s hardly that,’ Lady Luck replied. ‘Slaying a dragon is the ultimate mark of a true hero. The player who pulls this off will have people talking about him for decades.’
Big deal, Lex thought. So what if a lot of silly people gushed about you long after you were dead? But there was nothing for it. If he wanted to win the round then he would have to kill the dragon. And, once Lex started something, he would do anything to finish first. If he came second then, really, he might as well kill himself and have done with it, for he would only die of shame and self-loathing later on, anyway.
‘You are twenty points in the lead, Lex,’ Lady Luck said. ‘So you have earned yourself a twenty-minute head start. Jeremiah will then follow. And Lorella’s companion, Mab, will go twenty minutes after that. Good luck.’
And, with that, Lex and the other players disappeared from the dusty path and found themselves standing directly outside the boarded-up Gold-Dust Mines.
Lex lost no time, but started forwards at once, pausing only to glance back and smirk at Jeremiah over his shoulder. It was clear that the nobleman loathed having to stand there for a full twenty minutes whilst Lex got started on the round. The boards had been removed from the entrance, presumably for the purposes of the Game. Lex didn’t hesitate, but walked straight through with Jesse close behind him.
‘No one said nothin’ about any dragon-slaying,’ the cowboy grunted.
‘What’s the matter?’ Lex replied. ‘You’re not scared of the dragon, are you?’
‘You’re damned right, I’m scared of it! That thing’s responsible for the deaths of hordes of men! What makes you think we have any chance of killing it when so many others have failed before us?’
‘We’ll do it,’ Lex replied, ‘because that dragon is all that stands between me and winning this Game.’
‘Well, I think it’s a right shame,’ Jesse replied. ‘It ain’t doing no harm down here now. We oughta just leave it be.’
‘You can leave it be if you like,’ Lex replied, ‘but I plan on winning this thing. Besides,’ he added, ‘if I die during the third round then there’s no guarantee that Lady Luck will give you those pearls. She can be sulky like that.’
Jesse grunted again, but kept pace with Lex as they moved deeper into the mines. They were dark and wet and damp. They didn’t smell too good, either. Water dripped from the rocky walls, giving the place a sort of mildewy scent. The general consensus seemed to be that the dragon had been sleeping for several months after the mine first started being built, and things were trouble free during that time. After that, something the miners did, woke the dragon up and that was when the killings began. The mine was, therefore, unfinished. They had only had time to lay some of the paths and railway tracks, and to dig some of the shafts, before they had been forced to close down. When they finally decided to abandon the place, everything was left exactly where it was. Lex and Jesse passed several large piles of picks and shovels as they walked in.
When they were only a few feet from the entrance they had to stop. It was too dark to proceed any further, and it certainly didn’t take a genius to work out that wandering around an abandoned mine without light was not a good idea. Never mind the danger posed by the dragon, they could fall down an uncovered shaft, or have a ceiling fall down on them, or anything.
‘Don’t even think about lighting a torch,’ Jesse said.
Lex rolled his eyes. ‘I know that,’ he replied.
Lighting any kind of match down there would not be a good idea at all seeing as they didn’t know what gases may be present. They would need some other source of illumination but, fortunately, Lex had just the thing in his bag. The enchanter’s bag was huge inside but Lex could usually find the things he’d put in there himself without too much difficulty? perhaps because they were near the top. Every now and then, however, rummaging around he would discover something he’d never seen before. Last night on the ship he had had a good old rummage and found a caged glow-canary. The yellow bird shone like a beacon and had traditionally been used in mining because it could detect the presence of gold. When it came within ten metres of the stuff, its glow changed from white to yellow.
No one entirely understood glow-canaries, for it seemed that they did not need food and water in the same way most species did. Indeed, they periodically seemed to go into a state of hibernation, and would only come ‘alive’ when someone woke them up again. There were several ways of achieving this. Saying ‘wake up’ in a loud voice usually did the trick. Poking also worked. Lex had owned the enchanter’s bag for several months now and he had never come across the canary before. But once Lex woke it up, the little bird seemed quite happy, stood on its little perch and cocking its head this way and that in an alert, curious manner.
If it had been any other bird that had been in the bag without access to food and water for all those months, Lex would have discovered a dead, rotting corpse in its place but, as it was a glow-canary, it was alive and well, and now it was going to come in extremely handy.
Lex took the cage out and, instantly, pure white light shone all about them, illuminating their way perfectly.
‘What else you got in that bag?’ Jesse asked, staring.
The truth was that there could be any number of things left by the enchanter in there but, because it was Jesse asking, Lex shrugged and said, ‘Nothing of any value.’
They moved on. The narrow path that was cut into the rock led downwards. When they got to a certain point, it branched out in three directions. Lex chose the middle one because he had a feeling about it? and when you’re a person who’s as lucky as Lex, you never ignore your gut feelings.
They walked for some time through a twisty, turny corridor. It was an adrenaline-pumping walk, going deeper and deeper into the mines when they knew that somewhere in there lurked a terrible, ferocious, murderous monster. Lex wasn’t over keen on monsters because they tended to eat first and ask questions later. You couldn’t really scam a monster. Or talk it out of killing you. Or trick it into killing itself, instead. Lex, therefore, vastly preferred humans, for his silver tongue was not wasted on them. Still, he did experience something of a thrill in going into a highly dangerous mine that no one had been inside for more than a hundred years.
So far, though, the only odd thing Lex had noticed were the holes in the ground. They didn’t look like they had appeared there naturally and yet they obviously weren’t anything to do with mining. Lex decided there must be moles down there, and thought nothing more of it.
Until a rabbit popped its head up. On first appearances it was a perfectly ordinary white rabbit, but something about the look in its pink eyes stopped Lex dead in his tracks. He recognised that look. He had seen it before, back on the enchanted ship. And he had seen it later on at the farm, just before the crazy animal burnt the barn down. It was a mad, rabid, evil look that you weren’t likely to forget in a hurry.
‘Shit,’ Lex breathed. ‘I think that’s a-’
But before he could even finish the sentence, the rabbit opened its mouth and shot a plume of fire at them. Lex and Jesse both jumped back but, before the rabbit could emerge all the way out of its warren, Jesse drew his pistol and shot at it. He missed, but the sound was enough to send the rabbit back down into the hole.
‘Jeepers, I hate those fire-bunnies,’ the cowboy said.
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