[ 19 ]

SPLASH, TURNS OUT MY SCALY GREEN ASS WAS WRONG

Splash.

But I’m wrong. Turns out it isn’t a wormhole. Though considering what the mirrored triangle turns out to be, a wormhole would’ve been a welcome alternative.

Professor Nog.

Underworld.

I should’ve known. The mirrored triangle is a portal to Professor Nog’s lair in the Underworld. The Realm of the Dead.

This is another one of WarWings’ claims to fame. We’re the only military academy in the galaxy whose campus extends to the Underworld and whose curriculum prepares cadets for battling and conquering hideous creatures and spirits from the Realm of the Dead.

Some of our notable alumni have made a real name for themselves by doing mega damage in the twisted hellscapes of the Abyss. And because of our alumni’s battles with deranged ghost armies and warlord spirits and whatnot, there’s plenty of demons and deadlings who when they see a WarWings grad coming down the street on a dark night will cross to the other side.

Professor Nog’s the only member of the WarWings faculty who is actually dead, though. And so going to his lair is never exactly a picnic. No matter how many times you’ve been there, it always manages to give you a fresh case of the heebie-jeebies.

So it was Professor Nog’s cold dead tongue that had looped around my long neck and then yanked me into the Realm of the Dead.

Now as I squat here in his repulsive lair in the Underworld, I take one look at crusty old Professor Nog soaking himself in a LavaTub and grinning at me with a beakful of fangs, and decide I want to get out of here pronto.

Nog looks at me from the LavaTub and he squirts blacksmoke out his nostrils. “Welcome, Gork. Nice of you to drop in this morning.”

But because of all the deranged voices floating through the air, and their weird moaning and spooky cries, I’m having a hard time focusing on Professor Nog. That’s the first thing you notice down here, the constant cries for help.

In the Underworld, there’s all these crazy disembodied voices howling and screaming for all of eternity. And the chorus of these hideous voices will fray your nerve endings in a heartbeat. And what with all this moaning plus the ethereal presence of those ghosts and demons and deadlings swooshing around in Nog’s lair, well it makes the scales on the back of my long green neck stand up.

I hiss and spray sparks out my beak. And I lash my tail around behind me.

But Nog doesn’t even seem to notice my hiss. You’d be amazed at the stuff you can get away with when it comes to the dead. Maybe it’s because their eyes and earholes are so old and crusty, I don’t know. But you can take my word for it, the dead aren’t nearly as perceptive as they’d have you believe. And while Nog’s powers are immense, his actual talon-eye coordination is rotten. Downright pathetic, if you want to know the truth.

Then my horns start tingling like crazy. But that’s to be expected, really. Any dragon with a pulse is gonna have tingly horns while they’re down here in the Underworld. Tingly horns just come with the territory. I whip my tail around behind me, trying to shake off the big freakout that’s building up inside me.

“Good morning, Professor! What an unexpected pleasure to see you, sir!” I say.

Of course I’m lying through my fangs. Because being down here in the Underworld is about as pleasurable as getting a lava enema.

But the thing you always have to keep in mind when it comes to Professor Nog is he is the sole dragon who has the power to send you back up to the World of the Living. And so you’d be a real fool not to be extra polite and all to Nog.

Earlier this semester there’d been a smart-aleck dragon named Torp who kept spitting lavaloogies at the rest of us cadets during Professor Nog’s class. And finally one day in the middle of his lecture, Professor Nog walked over to Torp and, while continuing his lecture, just clamped a metal collar around Torp’s long green neck and tossed him in a cage. And then Professor Nog got one of his pet demons to come wheel Torp’s cage away, and that was the last any of us ever saw of that dragon fool Torp again.

None of us were crazy enough to ask Nog what’d become of Torp, and it was just generally understood that Torp’s was a heinous and demented fate beyond reckoning.

The word around WarWings is that Professor Nog’s at least five thousand years old. Whereas Dr. Terrible is only six hundred and eighty-four years old. Shoot, compared to Nog, my scaly grandpa is a mere baby dragon.

“Well Gork, I couldn’t help but notice that you seemed like you were in a real bind up there,” says Professor Nog, squirting blacksmoke out his nostrils. “I watched the whole thing from down here in my lair. And since Rexro is such a brute I thought why not give Gork a few minutes for his WILL TO POWER to reboot! Plus we might as well take this opportunity to consider your final grade, so you don’t come crying to me later and make a fuss.”

“Yes sir,” I say. “Very kind of you to think of me, Professor.”

I’ve been taking Nog’s Conquering and Ruling Over Demons course this semester. So on some level I’m happy to discuss my grade. Because the truth is I surprised myself by how well I’ve performed when it comes to battling deranged ghosts and twisted spirits and demons in Professor Nog’s class.

Just last week in class, Professor Nog had tossed me in a giant fiery pit full of melting bones and I’d savagely fought and defeated a platoon of blue Kethlethrop demons right there in the pit. I’d actually shown considerable WILL TO POWER that day in class, because I’d gone on a demented rampage and ripped the arms right off of those fleeing demons.

It was all pretty fiendish and ghastly of me, if I do say so myself.

And the rest of my dragon classmates had gathered around the edge of the fiery pit, cheering me on as I went full beasty on those blue demons.

Anyway, like I said, old Nog is the only WarWings faculty member who is actually dead. And if Professor Nog has any advanced degrees, I sure don’t know about them.

As far as I can tell, his sole qualification for the position of professor is the fact that he’s dead. Instead of a diploma on the wall, he’s got his death certificate up there.

Now one cadet who loves Professor Nog is Fribby. Nog is Fribby’s faculty adviser and she pretty much thinks he’s the most righteous dragon in the universe. I am sure you can guess why.

Professor Nog grabs a timer on the side of the LavaTub and flips it upside down and the sand starts pouring down into the lower glass tube.

“In order to get you down here, I had to put a Time Freeze up there,” says Professor Nog and points up with his talon in the general direction of the WarWings campus, which is several thousand leagues above us. “We don’t have much time to discuss your grade. Five minutes tops.” He nods at the timer where the sand in the top glass container is streaming down into the bottom glass container. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. So let’s get started,” he says. “Please lie down on the couch over there.”

I peer across the room and see the couch he’s talking about and it sure doesn’t look like anybody’s idea of a good time. This hideous couch is made of flaming hot coals.

“Make yourself comfortable, Gork,” says Professor Nog, grinning a beakful of fangs.

Now I’m not exactly sure why I do what I do next. That’s the way it is with me sometimes. I guess the pressure of being in the Underworld just gets to me and I sort of lose my mind. Goodness knows I wouldn’t be the first dragon to do so down here.

Anyway, I take one more look at this demented couch made of flaming hot coals and shout, “Are you crazy? Heck no, I’m not getting on that couch! I’m on my Queen Quest! Maybe some other time, Professor!”

Then I turn and bound off on my green webbed feet and get a running start and leap into the air and flap my wings—thwack-thwack—and try to fly away as fast as I can.

Which isn’t very fast, it turns out.

Because one of Nog’s pets, a giant red demon, rises up out of the floor in front of me and roars a mouthful of flames. Now the weird part is this demon is two-dimensional. He’s flat as a sheet of paper, but that doesn’t prevent him from being insanely scary.

And at the last second, I recognize the demon as that former dragon Torp I was telling you about. The maniac who had the gall to cut up and spit lavaloogies in Professor Nog’s class.

My God, how he has changed.

Well I guess that answers the question as to what Professor Nog does with his delinquent students. He turns them into pets.

If you consider a demon a pet, I don’t know.

Now I’m sure not proud to have to be telling you this, but when that hideous demon Torp pops up right in front of my face, well I just shriek and faint in midflight.