“Yes. It’s like a sort of ‘Stairway to Heaven’,” he told them both, smiling proudly.
Roger then gave the instructions necessary to implement his ingenious solution, especially to Queen Mavis, as the enormous ridge-backed Dragon was crucial to this particular solution. And very soon they could safely climb up and so reach the beginnings of the slope at the top of the cliff; And all in just a few minutes of careful preparation.
“Just a bit more over to the left,” he called up to Mavis. “O.K. That’s it… just about right, I think, now just hold it there, O.K. That’s good? We’ll have to cover our faces and make our way up as quickly as we can up through the smoke cloud and then get onto the slope’s edge.” He told them. He then stepped over towards Mary, who stood waiting with the Dragon’s egg, now wrapped up tightly and safely under her thick, school coat. “After you, Mademoiselle,” he said, gallantly taking her arm.
They then proceeded to slowly walk, step by cautious step, up to the as-yet unknown… and incredible and unbelievable dangers… that awaited them - up the Dragon’s back!
Mavis’s back was broad, and her spine was well ridged with large bony scales giving the children a natural set of steps. They steadily made their way from her tail and onto her thick, well-scaled neck. And Roger had had the presence of mind to whip out a couple of his trusty hankies before they plunged their way up through the layered cloud of smog. With these tied around their mouths and noses, they ploughed onwards and upwards, through the smoke and at last climbed onto the top of Mavis’s head, poking up through the smoke cloud.
By following Roger’s directions, the Dragon Queen had maneuvered herself right up close against the cliff face and stretched her neck up through the bank of smoke, her long dragon’s snout now resting on the ledge where the much sought-after slope to the surface began.
All they had to do now was slide down her nose onto the ledge and they’d be on their way.
But as Roger was helping Mary clamber down between Mavis’s eyes and onto her muzzle, Mad King Morgrave now suddenly attacked again. His mental roar thundered in their heads, immediately causing them to wince and cry out in pain. Mary lost her balance and fell to one side and slid dangerously across Mavis’s left cheek, still tightly clutching the Dragon’s Egg, so, unable to stop herself from falling headlong into the swirling cloud of smoke below and therefore from plummeting to her certain death.
Roger stood aghast, frozen in shock and helpless with horror, upon Mavis’s scaly brow, his stomach churning and clutching onto one of the Dragon’s horns that sprouted from there. There was absolutely nothing he could do to save her.
But Mavis, the Dragon Queen could. As soon as she felt Mary slip from off of her cheek, Mavis blew out a great cloud of blue-grey smoke from her flared nostrils that immediately enveloped Mary and stopped her falling any further. Then she deftly dipped her head down into the smoke and using her Dragon’s fangs, with the precision of a brilliant brain surgeon, she hooked and plucked Mary up through the cloud and safely deposited her on the cliff edge, right at the beginning of the much longed for slope.
“Oh, Mighty Merlin! Thank you, Mavis, oh, th-th-thank you very much.” Mary exclaimed. “You saved my life there fer sure!” She lay there crying and breathing heavily on the cliff top and clutching the Egg to her. Even as she’d fallen, she’d refused to let go of it.
Roger quickly slid his way down Mavis’s curving muzzle and joined her on the cliff ledge.
But… the murderous Morgrave hadn’t finished with them yet!
“Whatever trickeries you’re up to, Maggot Queen, they won’t work. This Humdrum spawn seem to be important to you… so they will die with you. None shall escape me!”
“His enraged mental roar once again thundered through their heads, sending them both into spasms of mind-searing pain. Mavis though immediately countered this attack and once more mentally protected them both.
“You hear me, so-called, Queen Sivam, you broken down and crippled wreck of a False Dragon. I the Mighty Morgrave will not allow them to leave!” he raged madly on.
But Mavis’s mental powers were easily a match for the Core Worm King’s.
“You are just a bully and a coward, Morgrave. So, you would pick on children rather than confront me, would you? Well, you mentally retarded, cinder-hearted, slime-ball of a worthless Worm, I will not allow that!” the Dragon Queen retorted, and then transmitted a terrific mental pulse of pain herself, sizzling through the rocky miles that still separated them. The powerful pain-wave hit Morgrave hard and wracked his body with nerve-searing agony.
“Let that be a lesson to you, you arrogant, pea-brained fool!”Mavis mentally roared out. Then turning her attention to the awaiting children, she blew another cloud of blue smoke all around them. “That will help protect you from further mental intrusion from Morgrave,” she assured them, “at least for a while, but you must now get to the surface as fast as you can.”
Roger stood on the sloping tunnel’s ledge and looked up into the inky darkness up ahead. He was very well aware of the difficult route that lay before them. Yes, they’d managed to get to the start of the slope, but now, since all the Erf Quakes, there was the added threat of hidden crevices, not to mention other unknown hazards from the recent rockfalls.
He could see Mary was still limping and wincing from the pain in her ankle. So how in all of Heisenberg’s Hell were they going to get up this slope? He thought anxiously to himself.
But Mavis had heard his every thought. The top of the Dragon Queen’s head rested against the clifftop edge and her heavily lidded eyes now blinked wisely and reassuringly up at him.
“I fully understand your concern, Roger,” Mavis’s cool tones flowed gently into his mind, once again. “But you are never alone, so do not fear. I will assist you now.. and others will follow. Now, if you and Mary will just step over to one side of the slope, we will proceed.”
Mavis raised her chin up over the slope’s ledge and then flared her nostrils wide, and then blasted the stony floor with a long stream of strange, yellow-green flame. Roger saw this had the immediate effect of melting all of the slope’s rocky surface, causing it to rumple and fold for quite some way up.
The molten, corrugated surface of the slope rapidly cooled, and the greenish glow faded, and soon, there before Roger and Mary’s disbelieving eyes, was a newly created, undulating stairway, already hardening, and ready for the children to walk up by.
“My dragon-flame blast will have gone only a few hundred yards at the most, my skylings, so do be careful when you come to the parts higher up, there may well be cracks and crevices up there.” Mavis mentally warned them.
“Well, another Stairway to Heaven was definitely what we needed!” Roger answered her, now feeling a bit more confident.
The children stepped carefully onto the first curved and springy step of their new stairway. But Mavis’s magical fire-blast had also disturbed the slope’s grey dust layer and smoke and this was snow pinning and roiling all about them. Roger thought it was like looking into the window of a giant spin-dryer, but one full of dirty looking rags.
Roger and Mary stood perched on the very start of the slope that would, all being well, take them up to their eventual freedom and much longed-for escape. Just as long as there were no more disasters that is; whether of mutant Monsters or of violent Erf-quakes!
Mary tearfully stooped and grasped Mavis by the tip of her snout and gave her a big hug, the best that she could manage. Mavis’s snout was far too big to wrap her arms all the way around though, but Mavis understood her intent. She lovingly blinked her large, amber eyes, looking intently upon the Sky Child, (giving her a comical, cross-eyed look, Roger noticed, with some amusement), and in her noble and dragonish way, Mavis rumbled her mutually felt, fondest feelings for her. Much like a cat would do, purring with peaceful contentment. But the purring of a Dragon Queen was far, far louder and a lot more meaningful.