Page 42 of Here Be Dragons

Deciding I’d try to get that answer again later, when things were more settled between us, I let it go. “I’m sure more will come. But for now, I’ll just chew on this.”

“Good. Let’s get cleaned up. I have something I need to show you.”

Chapter 22

Desmon

My mate held Q-Tipin her arms as she placed her hand on the shard of pottery, which was now laid on top of one of the Polaroids so that the etchings on the back of the piece lined up with the pattern on the photo.

We had been so focused on the flowers on what we thought was the front that we had barely given any thought to the bumps and lines on the back. With the Polaroid of the larger piece, ithad become clear that those formed a geometric pattern with a definite center and arms that radiated out, like a snowflake.

Carly had taken one look at it and lit up. “I’m so stupid! Duh! The key! This is the key!”

I’d had no idea what she meant until she’d explained it.

“Back in high school, I had a science teacher who brought in a metal plate, sprinkled sand on it, and then touched the plate with various tuning forks. The sand danced on the plate until it formed a similar pattern. Using a different tuning fork changed the pattern. It was designed to show us that sounds were actually vibrations. I thought it was pretty cool, but like most things in school, I never thought I’d actually use it in real life.”

It was amusicalkey.

The second Carly had described the experiment with the metal plate and sand to Seth, he’d nodded vigorously, exclaiming, “Yes! I saw that on the internet.” And that was why we were now in my library, and Seth was playing tones from his electric guitar for Carly until she found the right one.

“Nope, too sharp. We’re close, though. Maybe down a semitone?”

Seth tried again, playing something a little flatter.

Carly frowned. “I don’t think that’s right, either.”

“Why use the modern Western scale? I asked. “The demon who set this up is old. Ancient.”

“True. And there are cultures with musical systems using microtonal notes even today. Hang on…” After a bit of fiddling with his instrument, he tried again.

Q-Tip was the first to react. His ears perked up as he scrambled to a sitting position from where he had been attempting to do an impression of a blanket.

“Ooh! I think we got it.”

“Okay, that’s terrific, but how are we supposed to use it?” I asked the room in general.

“Remember those buttons with the flower? Maybe they need a certain frequency to move.” Carly grabbed the other Polaroid and placed the ceramic shard on it, showing the front.

“Hey! Look at that! I think you’ve got it.” Seth peered at the swirling lines of flowers that would’ve looked like mere decoration to anyone else. “The question is, which order do we play them? Right to the left? Or left to right?”

“And are there consequences to guessing incorrectly the first time?” Carly asked.

She was getting the hang of this competition. If we got it wrong, there might be a punishment. Something that would be painful for a dragon, but potentially deadly for anyone else. Option two, nothing would happen. I could never be sure.

“I will try it on my own.”

Carly looked concerned. “But what if—”

“The punishment never kills the participant,” I said, hoping that was true. It had been so far, but that could change. Demons tended to have a perverse sense of humor, and it got worse as they got older.

“Yeah, I guess it’s not very entertaining if one of you croaks before the finale,” Seth said. “Okay. I can set up my amp and get this tone running through the statue, then step back to let you do the rest. That way, I can keep a shield around you just in case, and we’ll be there if anything happens. You know Matty’s going to be upset if an army of ghouls gets teleported here and he misses a big fight.”

Carly looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything.

“Fine. But you will all stay well back and out of the room when the time comes.” That seemed to appease the wizard. “And we cannot let anyone else see those photos. They must be destroyed as soon as possible.”

“Okay, then, I guess you’ll have to memorize these icons,” Carly said. “I already did, just in case.”

---