Dragon Island (20 page)

I stand, place my hand on one of the extended stones, and tug.

It doesn’t move.

I reach up and do the same with another stone higher above.

Same result.

I take hold of the stone with my other hand and lift my feet off the stairs, letting the block support my entire weight.

It holds fast.

I let my feet drop back onto the stairs and curse, resigning myself to what I’m about to do. If either stone had come free, I would’ve had an excuse not to proceed. But things being what they are, I’ve an opportunity to go forward—or rather, in this case, upward—and so I must take it, regardless of the risk. Otherwise, my only option is to march back down into the mouth of the daikaiju camped out at the pillar’s base.

I pick up Ishiro’s sword and slide it into my belt. I place my hands and one foot onto three stones protruding from the wall and haul myself up.

I look down and see a foot of space now separating me from the stairs.

There’s no getting around it now. I’m climbing.

I look up at the gateway to Yamanba’s castle.

It seems light years away.

I recall my climb of the giant, creeper-covered hand in the marsh.

“One hand at a time.”

I reach up and grab another jutting stone.

“One hand at a time.”

I climb higher, moving upward at an angle, following what appears to be the most secure path. But even the most secure path is a treacherous one under these circumstances.

My arms and legs begin to ache and tremble a mere fifteen feet into my climb. I’m hungry, weak, and exhausted beyond all measure.

And I’m afraid.

Tears begin to stream from my eyes.

“This isn’t fair!” I yell, but the wind picks up speed around me, its howl swallowing my words as it tries to tear me from my perch.

I tighten my fingers around the edges of the stone blocks and hang on.

Why?

I honestly couldn’t tell you. Giving up is looking pretty good right now. But something, whether originating from within or without, won’t allow me to release my hold.

Could it be bravery that’s keeping my fingers clamped around the stones?

I doubt it. That’s giving me far too much credit.

The truth is, the only thing keeping me alive right now is simple fear. Death would be sweet release at this point, but my terror at the thought of it just won’t allow me to take the necessary leap to make it happen.

Is it possible to be both scared and brave at the same time?

I simply don’t know.

At last, the wind dies down. I reach up. My fingers curl around the edge of another jutting stone. I pull down and scream as the block tumbles free in a cloud of dust and pebbles from the castle’s foundation.

My momentum swings me sideways and backward so that the stone misses me to plummet endlessly into the mist swirling beneath my feet. Gasping, I fling my body around, the sword in my belt scraping against the stones, my feet dangling free in the air, my free hand fumbling to at last find purchase in the hole vacated by the falling stone block.

I whimper for a moment as I cling there, my face buried into my shoulder. But, unfortunately, I no longer have the time or strength needed to give feeling sorry for myself the proper attention it deserves.

I’m too high to quit climbing now. It’s keep moving or die. I only have enough resolve left to do one or the other.

So, with my limbs quivering with strain, I haul myself up another few feet. Then another few. Then still another few more.

An eternity of aches, pains, and discouragements later, I reach the giant open gateway leading inside Yamanba’s castle. The other end of the rickety, swinging bridge I fell from days ago slopes down and away from it to disappear into the mist below.

It’s here on Yamanba’s doorstep that things truly get difficult.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire!

—Quote from Carthaginian church father Quintus Septimius Tertullianus

I
heave myself over the bridge’s support ropes into the open gateway. Panting and exhausted, I yank Ishiro’s sword out of my belt and let it clatter onto the ground. I roll onto my back to rest for a moment. Risky behavior considering who supposedly lives here, I admit. But at the moment, I’m simply too tired to care.

I stare at the open stories above me, pondering the sheer enormity of the gateway I’m lying in, not liking the thoughts coming into my mind.

The reason for the gateway’s gargantuan size could be chalked up to the usual reasons oversize gates adorn castle keeps. But the fact that it’s open (In truth, the gateway isn’t open. There simply is no gate.) tells me Yamanba doesn’t feel the need to guard against invaders.

Either she assumes the Tengu will keep the castle safeguarded and that no one would be foolhardy enough to take the time and effort to climb the pillar stairs, or she simply feels she has nothing to fear from the outside. Considering the things I’ve encountered on this island—dragons, monsters, demons, and robots just to name a few—the latter would be pretty darn bold.

So it’s no understatement to say I’m apprehensive about possibly meeting Yamanba, the Tengu, or whatever else might be lurking within the castle’s interior.

It’s with this thought in my head that I hear the sound of yowling above me. I slowly crane my head to see the upside-down visage of a gray-furred kitten peering down at me with curious, unblinking eyes.

Now, I’m admittedly more of a dog person, but I like cats and kittens just fine. In fact, our neighbors’ cat back home just had huge liter and Mom has promised I can have at least one for my own.

But those kittens are cute, meowing little balls of fur. Not at all like the one starring down at me right now.

He is as big as a pick-up truck!

I swallow hard. “Hello, kitty.”

A second kitten with fur the color of flame appears and nuzzles it way along the first’s side to get a better look at me.

My heart skips a beat when a third kitten appears at my feet, its body cutting me off from the open doorway and the potential escape the swinging bridge might have held.

This kitten is even larger than its brothers and has fur as black as death.

My death.

I feel my chest tighten and realize I’ve forgotten to breathe.

Moving carefully, my eyes darting between felines, I roll onto my belly and clasp Ishiro’s sword in my right hand. The giant kittens rock back for a cautious moment, then resume their gawking.

I slowly rise to my feet, three pairs of tire-sized eyes following my every move.

Standing so that all three kittens are within my vision’s periphery, my adrenaline-honed senses take in my predicament with crystalline focus.

The felines are not merely giant cats, but kaiju. The beginnings of leathery wings and segmented scorpion’s tales are undeniable along their flanks. If they are not Nekokat’s actual children, then they are certainly of his same breed.

They may just be cubs, but the smallest of them is equipped with claws and fangs that would make a Bengal tiger envious.

I pray they have yet to develop Nekokat’s talent for devastating sonic screams. Otherwise, I’m toast!

The cavernous room we stand in appears to have once been a grand foyer for a race of regal giants. But whatever former glory it once held passed eons ago.

Wooden floors and lake-sized mats probably once trod upon by colossal lords and ladies now lie covered with bones, droppings, and other filth, their high gloss sheen and luxuriant weave lost to antiquity. Walls of wood and fine paper three stories high stand tattered and curling, the paintings and calligraphy strung across them faded to near blankness with age.

A castle once fit for kings and queens has become nothing more than a den for animals. Somewhere deep inside, I find a microsecond to mourn this loss despite the imminent presence of my own potential destruction.

It’s then that I spot my potential salvation: a crevice created by two warped floor boards on the room’s other side—one just big enough to hide the human-sized mouse that I currently am, figuratively speaking.

I have to reach it!

Of course, in order to do that, I have to slip by the daikaiju-kitties. If only I had a ball of string or a squeaking rubber mouse.

What I do have is Ishiro’s sword. So I use it. Not in the way it was intended to be wielded, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I bring it up before my face. As hoped, the daikaiju kittens track the blade as though they were hypnotized by it. I wave the sword back and forth. Their heads swing from left to right, mirroring the blade’s motion.

“Here goes nothing,” I whisper.

I hurl the sword with all my remaining strength toward a corner in the room perpendicular to my position. I drop as the three daikaiju kittens go bounding over me after the blade. As quick as they pass, I sprint toward the crack in the floor. It lays roughly the length of a football field away.

I’m half way there when I hear the daikaiju cubs yowl behind me. I glance over my shoulder and see that they’re chasing after me, Ishiro’s sword forgotten.

I find a speed reserve I didn’t know I possessed and turn on the juice as I race for my objective.

The kaiju close the gap between us, drawing so near I feel their hot breath on my back.

Ten feet out from the crack in the floor I leap, trusting my momentum to carry me remaining distance to my hiding place.

The hole rushes up at me, the promise of the shelter it will bring tripling in strength with every inch I fall.

But then the wind is knocked from my lungs as I’m enveloped by a net of rough, warm flesh. I feel gravity and inertia tug at me as I’m drawn high up into the air at incredible speed.

The net opens and I realize it isn’t a net I’m trapped in at all, but an enormous human hand—one belonging to a giant!

I look up.

Squinted, jaundiced eyes as big as window panes stare back at me from the largest, ugliest face I’ve ever seen! The wrinkles covering it are like the furrows of a plowed field. A basketball-sized mole stands on the tip of the face’s most distinguishing feature: a bulbous, hooked nose purple with the network of criss-crossing veins running just beneath the pale, leathery skin.
 
The few teeth actually present in the big face’s mouth are rotting, tombstone caricatures. Its breath covers me in ragged, phlegm-filled gasps thick with the scent of decay.

The giant speaks, using the language of the Toho. Despite the unnatural volume and coarseness of its voice, I realize the creature holding me hostage is a woman.

A hag.

My climb up the stairs and into the castle was all for nothing. I’ve journeyed all this way only to literally fall into Yamanba’s clutches!

Overwhelmed by horror, black roses begin to bloom along the edge of my vision. A moment later, I’m swallowed by darkness.

Be it in reference to Grendel’s infamous mother, the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga, or Yamanba from Japanese folklore, the fear associated with the haggish, evil witch archetype cannot be denied...

—Excerpt from
Myths and Monsters of the Ancient World
, by Mitch Maedel (2009)

I
dream of terrifying plane-crashes, horrible monsters, and colossal dragons. The hideous image of Yamanba’s giant, wrinkled face appears before my subconscious mind’s eye and I awake with a start.

My first sensations are the sound of metallic clanging and the smell of a cook fire.

I rub my eyes and sit up.

I’m inside a chamber constituted solely by black, iron prison bars and a flat, metal floor of the same color.

The chamber floor is littered with human bones. The chamber’s bars stretch high above me to curve and meet at an open ring of metal roughly the size of a stop sign. A single iron girder spans its length. Attached to the girder is a chain comprised of metal links the size and shape of car tires. The chain suspends the entire chamber from one of the massive wooden rafters stretched beneath the pitched ceiling above.

Taking all this in, I realize exactly where I am: inside a giant bird cage!

I stand up and approach the cage’s perimeter. My movements cause the cage to wobble. I lose my balance just short of the bars. I reach out and grab onto them just in time to stop my fall.

The cage settles and I right myself so that I may view the world beyond.

A room that could house an entire city block stretches forth in every direction. Its paper and wood walls are strung with pots and pans the size of swimming pools.

Below the cage, at the room’s center, is the source of the cook fire I smell: an immense caldron of bubbling broth suspended above a fire pit built into the hardwood floor.

But none of this is what grabs my attention.