The High House by James Stoddard Read Free Book Online Page B

and he became aware that he heard neither wind nor thunder, as if the room were cut off from the whole world; he knew if he died there no one would ever know his fate. He started to turn back until he saw what appeared to be a massive piece of fallen sculpture, gray and cold beneath the wavering flame. It had a curious, oily look, and he tapped it with his foot. It was strangely resilient.
    Slowly, terribly, the form quivered, unfolding itself, lifting into the darkness, while the floorboards groaned in complaint. A serpentine head, filled with rows of massive, sharp teeth, with red eyes large as his fist, and a flickering red tongue raised itself nearly to the ceiling. He had kicked the monster’s whiplike tail, which now slid reptilian across the floor, forcing him to avoid being struck by leaping over it.
    It stood on two legs, balanced by its tail, its short, front claws dangling before it. He had no thought of using his sword, but fled across the attic floor, back the way he had come. The beast roared behind him, a sound like a whole jungle howling at once. Leviathan feet pounded at his back.
    His flight was a madness, a desperate whirl across that nightmare junkyard. He had a slight lead, and the monster was slow; its footsteps did not sound often, but it covered a great distance with each stride.
    He banged his knee against an old trunk, stumbled and nearly fell. Great jaws snapped shut just to his left, crushing the trunk like an egg. He dodged to the right and ran on while the beast worried the trunk.
    The respite lasted but a moment before the pounding footsteps resumed. Hot breath blew across his back as he spied the stairwell. He cast the lamp and sword behind him and gave a desperate leap.
    He made the last of his headlong lunge in darkness, as the beast trampled the lamp, snuffing it out. Carter’s breath was knocked from him as he bounced over the threshold of the stair and rolled down it face first. He covered his head with his hands; the fall seemed to go on and on as he skipped across the steps.
    At last, he came to rest, sprawling in blackness upon the stair. He crawled on all fours, twenty steps farther down, then stopped to listen. Above him, the monster shuffled and growled its frustration. Fetid breath blew across him; fire gushed down the stair, a blast of flame falling short by inches, its heat singeing his brow.
    He scrambled down the steps, finally pausing to take stock of himself. His shoulder, arms, and ribs were badly bruised, but nothing seemed broken. Pain throbbed through every part of his body, but he was alive, if he could only make his way back to his room.
    He cringed as a voice like rumbling thunder boomed down the stairway. It was a moment before he recognized the words within it.
    “Who is the little man who enters my attic, the fillet buttered in his own oils?” it asked. “Speak. Tell me your name, the name of your kin, the name of your station.”
    “I am … the Steward of the house,” Carter called, for so his father’s will had named him. “Who—what are you?”
    “I am Jormungand, the Last Dinosaur, destroyer, devourer, ravager of kingdoms and epochs, all greed and covetousness, brooding loneliness. Once I was Dragon, but in this scientific age that is no longer stylish. The flames I kept for high drama. Now I, who was once Behemoth, am only pieced-together bones, first believed to belong to biblical giants, fresh-dug by nearsighted archaeologists, given flesh by faint intellects, made poorer by lack of imagination. But you aren’t the Steward of the house. If you were, I would have seen the Seven Words of Power within you.”
    Carter paused, uncertain where he had heard of the Seven Words before. “I became the Steward only recently.”
    “A Steward without the Words of Power? A fish in a bucket, a duck in the desert, fodder for your enemies. But you are fortunate. I know the Words well. Come up here and I will teach them to you.”
    “Perhaps you could tell me