The Chamber in the Sky Read Free Page A

needle-sharp feet had plunged into the thombulant’s back. A muddy, blue line shot up the jointed leg toward the monster — the thombulant’s blood. The mite was sucking the life out of the poor beast.
    Gregory screamed. The mite was dragging him and his collapsing steed closer to the edge of the path.
    The boy scrambled to hold on to the pommel of his saddle. He felt his steed, dying of blood loss, lifted in the air.
    With a final yelp — strangely quiet and short — he fell.

B rian saw Gregory’s dead thombulant drop off the cable and rebound on loops and arcs far below, dwindling. He saw also that Gregory had fallen out of the saddle first — luckily — and had dropped onto the path. The blond boy lay on his back, stunned, his arms twitching, his mouth open, the wind knocked out of him.
    By now, Brian had his musket out. He pointed it at the monster’s body and gathered his thoughts together to say the Cantrip of Activation — the magical trigger word that would fire the gun.
    But it was hard to think with his steed bucking beneath him, panicked, releasing steam from fluttering vents.
    The giant mite did not seem interested in him. It now moved with mechanical swiftness toward Gwynyfer and her frantic thomb.
    Brian barked the Cantrip of Activation, and the gun fired.
    He saw a blast of light spray across the monster’s thick, lumpy hide. He’d hit it square in the middle of its huge, hulking body.
    But it made no difference. The skin was too thick.
    The monster fastened itself to the nearest strands for purchase and darted two legs toward Gwynyfer’s riding beast. She screeched at it and swung her goad, knocking one of the needle-like arms back.
    Brian fired again.
    And once again, it didn’t make any difference whatsoever.
    The monster shot its jointed arms out once more and this time pierced the flesh of Gwynyfer’s steed with two of its syringe claws. It began to suck blood. The blue line of liquid shot up its arms.
    Another brown, needled arm slashed down — and this time, it shot right at Gwynyfer, tearing her red riding coat. Then it reared back and prepared to shoot forward one last time.
    Brian was in a panic. His gun was useless, Gregory was lying helplessly on the ground, unable to speak — and now Gwynyfer was about to be drained of her blood.
    Then he had an idea. He aimed again, only this time higher. He thought of the Cantrip of Activation and fired.
    One of the giant mite’s thin, zigzag legs blasted apart at a joint. The monster quivered.
    Brian fired again and again at the legs that held the thing suspended in air.
    The monster swayed crazily now, trying to retract its syringe legs from its prey to fasten them on another strand.
    Brian blew another leg off.
    The mite was running out of legs to hold itself up.
    Gwynyfer, once more in a perfect riding pose, shouted to her thombulant, “Go on, then!” Her steed charged forward, freeing itself from the needles.
    Brian blasted apart another leg — and at this, the giant mite slewed to the side, tried to plunge a remaining needle into a stalk — failed — and fell.
    It slapped briefly against the path, and the path shuddered a little. The monster kept falling.
    They heard the metallic reports of the thing banging against fibers below.
    Brian took a deep breath. He rode his steed over to the edge of the path and looked down. The shadowy tangle still wobbled where the monster had fallen.
    Gregory was standing up, looking pale and shaken. Gwynyfer reined in her steed. “Lovely, Bri-Bri!” she exclaimed. She did not seem shaken in the least. “Gregory, you poor thing. Look at you, all dismounted.”
    Gregory couldn’t speak immediately. He kept looking around, fixing his eyes on the quivering fibers.
    â€œI can’t believe I didn’t fall off the path,” he said, stunned. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to get out of the saddle. I was