The Church Dragon - Part 5
Part 5 of The Church Dragon, a story inspired by the true events of one Sunday morning.
The Church Dragon - Part 5
Friday, December 25, 2009
By Labatryth Lyndynhyra
Manda jumped, startled at the loud growling tone rammed through her brain. "I-I-I am! I'm going to find it! J-Just c-c-chill!"
"Well the cats are all hissing at me." I said, unconcerned, as if I ignored her fear.
As I looked down at the driveway, I saw all five cats standing around my feet, in various territorial positions. Showing their sharp feline teeth, their eyes glared at me as they let out a wretched hissing sound. But I could compete just fine. Getting my face right next to theirs, showing my sharp teeth in the process, I let out a growl louder than a lion, and deeper than a whale. It rattled the panes of glass in my house, and Manda could hear them shake even up in my room. Terrified, all five cats vaulted away from my threatening face, as I grinned with a sense of accomplishment, blowing just a little bit of flame out my nostrils.
"Yeah. Thought so." I said to myself.
"S-So, the drawer under the N64, right?"
"Yes." I replied tonelessly, patience running thin.
"O-Ok."
Carefully Manda pulled open the drawer, and here she was greeted with many objects of interest.
"Wow! Grand Theft Auto cheats!" she said excitedly, snatching some pieces of paper out of the drawer. And there she studied the sheets, reading the list of codes, button combinations and what not for a video game that she liked so much.
"Infinite ammo! What!?"
But at this point she somewhat remembered the dire situation at hand, and tossed the pieces of paper onto the bed, digging around in the drawer again.
"A DS charger! Woah! And an original Game Boy Color! Oh cool! And a Splash Mountain rag from Disney World...Super glue?! What's he need that for?"
Finding such interesting items in this drawer only gave her more incentive to search further. She found an empty wite-out pen, a useless light bulb with the filament broken, tissues, duct tape, cough drops, fruit snacks, candy, a compass, bits of string, plastic, metal and fuzz, a video game cartridge, a yo-yo, a destroyed digital recorder, a baby football, a tape for a video camera, and other odds and ends. But removing a series of tissues from the corner of the drawer, she soon came across a beautiful red stone. It was not in the shape as you might expect for such an important item; it wasn't in the shape of a stone at all, but instead, a jewel or gem. After all, it did belong to a king. The blood stone was shaped as a geometric diamond that was polished to have five facets on front and back, and a flat, diamond-shaped facet in the exact middle of the stone. Because of this facet, four quadrilaterals exactly equal in length, height and width, bordered the sloped edges of the center facet. The back was identical to the front. Picking up the stone in her hand, her eyes were mesmerized by it. She stared into the deep, swirling red bliss of blood red color in the center of the blood stone, as if a whole world was contained in it. If she stared at the swirls long enough it began to look as if they actually were moving. Yet she knew they weren't. But after she did a double glance, and blinked her eyes, it appeared to move again.
"Have you found it yet!" I said.
"Beautiful..." she unwittingly said out loud.
Fused to the right and left of the stone was a twenty-four karat flat gold chain, one inch in width. The length was the same on either side of the stone, meaning that the blood stone had been forged in the exact middle of the chain. Nowadays these are called serpentine chains, because they consist of flat pieces of gold, linked together in perfect symmetry and without blemish. When handled they are able to be moved and twisted as a snake, therefore giving them their name. Their surface appears as a continuous stream of liquid gold, and is able to form to the folds of the skin at any time when worn. In this way the chain always lays flat against the skin(or scales), staying out of the way of nearly everything. As the girl tried to find how the chain was attached to the stone, she could not. But she did notice that it actually ran through the insides of the stone, coming out on the other side. At the back, both ends of the serpentine chain were locked together by a very small but durable padlock, having a classic kind of keyhole in the middle of it. This is to say that the keyhole was a vertical slit, widening towards its top, having a hole at the bottom.
"Geez, this isn't meant to come off." Manda said, looking at the lock. Holding the blood stone in her left hand she immediately began to dig around in the drawer with her right. She looked in the closest left corner. Nothing. Then the girl tried the right, but groping around in the center of the drawer she saw a golden skeleton key, tiny, but still able to be held and controlled with a human hand. And she had to pry it out of some sort of bottle top.
"What is taking so long?" I asked her in a more kind tone than last time.
"I found it! It looks awesome! It's so beautiful."
"What, the blood stone? Oh yes, it's VERY beautiful."
The gold chain felt cool against her palm, and the stone was even colder. Manda tossed the golden key into her pocket, along with the stone. Sliding the drawer closed forcefully she walked out of the room quickly, closing the door behind her.
"Are you coming then?"
"Yeah. Just chill."
"I have been 'chilling' for fifteen minutes now."
"Really? Sorry! I must have got distracted!"
"Must have."
So Manda rounded the corner, walking past the wood balcony she had passed on her way in, and turning right, she could see the stairs. Darting down them quickly, she turned right again and headed for the back door. But she had to traverse the long hall, and pass the guest bathroom to get to the door. Once she did, she pulled it open, and closing it behind her ran for the white door to exit the garage.
© 2013 Labatryth Lyndynhyra