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.
‘You’ve seen them before?’ Lex asked.
‘You get ’em out in the desert sometimes. Nasty little buggers they are. Dying out now, thank the Gods. Ain’t seen one in years.’
‘Let’s hope there aren’t too many more of them,’ Lex said as they went on. He knew from past experience just how much damage one fire-breathing rabbit could do and he did not fancy being stuck down here with one, let alone more.
‘Are they carnivorous?’ Lex asked, remembering that first time he’d come across one on the enchanter’s boat and it had tried to chew through his boot.
‘Oh yeah,’ Jesse replied. ‘They’d gladly make a feast of you if you let ’em.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Lex said, a horrible, terrible, awful suspicion suddenly occurring to him. ‘What if… What if there isn’t any dragon?’
‘What makes you say that?’ Jesse asked, frowning. ‘It killed all those men, didn’t it?’
‘Did it? No one ever saw the attacks, did they? They only found the charred bodies later.’
‘Yeah, but… those bodies were blackened to a crisp. Half eaten most of the time, too. No way one little bunny could do that, even if it could breathe fire.’
‘Not one perhaps,’ Lex replied. ‘But if there was a pack of them..’
‘But the fire-bunnies are dyin’ out,’ Jesse said, starting to sound a little desperate. ‘Everyone says so. Besides, other miners reported havin’ seen the dragon.’
‘Well, of course they did,’ Lex replied dismissively. ‘Down here in the mines, getting increasingly scared, with more and more people dying, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a man among them who wasn’t convinced he’d seen the dragon at some point. Who knows? perhaps a few of them really did catch a glimpse of one of the fire-bunnies. They would probably have been genuinely sure that it was a dragon they’d seen. Besides, if miners were being attacked in the tunnels whilst they worked then how would a dragon even fit into those narrow corridors? How would it be able to move around the mine at all?’
‘Some of the descriptions are quite detailed though,’ Jesse pointed out? although he sounded anything but certain.
‘But none of them match,’ Lex muttered. ‘Although I suppose it would’ve been dark down here and they would have legged it as soon as they saw anything. Hopefully, there are fire-breathing rabbits and a dragon down here.’ That sounded odd, given the circumstances, so Lex added, ‘Well… you know what I mean.’
‘I sure do,’ Jesse replied. ‘I don’t much fancy wanderin’ round this old mine looking for a dragon that don’t even exist, and maybe never did.’
‘You and me both,’ Lex grunted.
The problem, though, was that sending players down to an abandoned mine to slay a dragon that wasn’t real sounded exactly like the sort of stupid thing Lady Luck would do. Lex couldn’t help wondering what would happen to the Game if that was the case. How would they decide the winner if the third round was one that couldn’t possibly be won?
After about twenty minutes of navigating their way through the corridor, Lex was starting to worry that it didn’t lead anywhere useful at all. The mine was unfinished? for all they knew, this corridor would suddenly come to a dead end.
But then they came out into the cavern.
As previously stated, there is more than one way to wake up a glow-canary. Shouting and poking will do the trick. But another thing that works like a charm is to bring a glow-canary that’s already awake into close proximity with sleeping ones. Something about the light the awake one sheds will rouse the sleeping ones within seconds.
Jesse and Lex, therefore, had to shield their eyes because, after a good half hour spent wandering the dark
