The others slowly crawled towards Billy until they were lined up shoulder to shoulder, their heads poking out just past the edge of the entrance and peering down at the ground.
Ling-Fei patted the floor of the cave. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are a kind mountain.’
‘What do we do?’ asked Dylan. He held his glasses with one hand to keep them from falling to the ground hundreds of metres below.
‘I think we just have to wait it out,’ said Charlotte. ‘And hope Ling-Fei is right about where it’s taking us.’
After several hours, and the rest of the pork buns, the red dome came into view.
The walking mountain took them to the edge of the black and purple foliage surrounding the red dome, then slowly sank back down towards the earth. Billy and the others climbed out of the cave as soon as it settled on the ground.
‘That was wild!’ said Dylan, breathing heavily. He patted the various parts of his body, checking that he was still in one piece, before looking up. ‘And we survived!’
‘Thank you again, friendly creature,’ said Ling-Fei.
‘Yeah, thank you,’ said Charlotte with a curtsy.
‘Seriously. The biggest thank you ever,’ added Billy.
‘I never thought I’d be talking to a mountain, but yes, thank you!’ said Dylan.
The cave didn’t respond, but Billy suspected it understood them.
They looked up at the red dome towering above them. Eight plumes of purple smoke rose from within.
‘What now?’ whispered Dylan.
‘We go into the red dome and we find our dragons,’ said Billy. He could sense that Spark was close. He hoped she felt it too, and that their dragons knew Billy and his friends were coming. ‘Then we stop Dimitrius and the Noxious from bringing back the Dragon of Death.’
‘Oh, sure, as if it’s that simple,’ said Dylan.
‘Do you have any other ideas?’
‘Oh, come on!’ Charlotte whisper-shouted. ‘We’re wasting time.’ She pushed ahead and tromped through the thick purple grass.
It was like entering an alien jungle. The grass rose to their knees and giant purple trees blotted out the sun and stars above them. Prickly cactus-like plants grew all around, bearing strange black fruit on their spiky branches. As they passed an especially big cactus, one of the fruits fell and rolled towards Billy.
He leaned down and picked it up.
‘I wouldn’t touch that,’ said Dylan, backing up.
‘Just checking it out,’ said Billy. ‘I’m not going to eat it or anything.’
It had a fuzzy, sticky shell with bright purple veins covering its surface. It looked like an aubergine’s evil twin.
Billy rapped on it. ‘Sounds hollow,’ he said. And then, exactly where he’d rapped, the fruit cracked open and hundreds of beetle-like insects poured out, crawling up Billy’s arms and down his back.
‘Ahhh!’ yelled Billy, dropping the fruit. ‘Get them off! Get them off!’ He frantically swatted at his arms and legs. The beetles had sharp pincers and pointy little legs and he was terrified one was going to burrow into his skin. ‘Help me!’
Together Charlotte and Dylan swiped as many beetles off him as they could.
‘What are these things?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Billy. ‘Just get them off!’
‘I’m trying! I’m trying!’ said Charlotte. ‘Stay still!’
‘Watch out for the needles on the bushes!’ cried Ling-Fei. ‘I’m getting a bad feeling about them!’
Billy swerved, but it was too late. One of the needles snagged on his palm. Blood welled instantly, and a stabbing pain shot from his palm all the way up to his neck.
‘Guys,’ he said, staggering back. ‘I don’t feel good.’
His vision blurred and his knees buckled.
‘Billy!’ Charlotte shouted, darting forward.
Billy reached out for her, and then crumpled in a heap in the long grass.
The Red Dome
When Billy opened his eyes, the first things he saw were his friends’ faces peering over him.
‘He’s not dead!’ said Dylan.
‘We knew he wasn’t dead,’ snapped Charlotte. ‘He was breathing.’
‘How do you feel?’ asked Ling-Fei.
Billy blinked and rubbed his eyes. ‘What… happened?’ His brain felt fuzzy and his head hurt.
‘Oh, no, what if he has amnesia?’ said Dylan. He got closer to Billy’s face. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Billy sat up and pushed Dylan away. ‘I don’t have amnesia,’ he said. ‘You are Dylan O’Donnell. We’re in the Dragon Realm. But I don’t remember what happened just now.’ He gestured around at the flattened grass where he’d landed.
‘You opened that rotten fruit, which was a terrible idea, then these horrible beetles came out of it, and then you panicked and ran into another plant that apparently was poisonous and knocked you out,’ said Charlotte.
‘How long was I out for?’
‘Just a few minutes,’ said Ling-Fei. ‘We didn’t know what we were going to do if you didn’t wake up!’
Billy looked around him and saw the purple spiky plants everywhere. He pointed at one. ‘That’s what knocked me out? The needles?’
His friends nodded.
‘Now I can sense that the plant has sleep-inducing properties,’ said Ling-Fei. ‘Sorry I missed it before – I was too focused on the red dome.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Billy. ‘We can’t expect you to sense everything around you all the time.’ Then he started to grin. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
After gathering as many of the needles as they could and putting them in Dylan’s backpack, they carried on through the foliage towards the red dome, careful not to touch anything else. As they got closer, Billy saw that the dome looked as if it was breathing. Its translucent surface was covered in twisted red veins and it rose and fell in a gentle rhythm.
‘Do you think it’s alive?’ asked Dylan. ‘What are the chances this dome could attack us?’
‘Ling-Fei?’ asked Billy.
Ling-Fei tilted her head to the side, staring at the dome. ‘It feels… powered by something. But not alive. The whole thing stinks of dark magic. No wonder the evil dragons are called the Noxious.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘There’s only one way to find out if this thing is going to kill us or not,’
