“Task one complete!” Lintz bellowed.
Alex patted the professor on the shoulder. “Nice work, Professor.”
“A team effort, I’d say,” the professor said brightly, returning to his feet.
“Yes, if you regard a close call and sheer serendipity as a team effort,” Aamir muttered.
With that, Alex and the others ran over the newly forged bridge, feeling only a slight shiver of trepidation that it might be a trick. They let out a collective sigh of relief as they reached the other side. Another door lay within the rocks. It didn’t appear to have any lock on it, and they walked into the space beyond.
The room that met them was brightly lit, stinging their eyes after the hazy luminosity of the previous room, as they glanced around at their new surroundings. Ahead was an exotic water garden, with a deep, azure pool fed by a waterfall tumbling from a cluster of stalagmites above. There were brightly colored flowers rising up from the lush green grass that carpeted the cavern, and a wooden bridge, painted a vivid red, that traversed the pool, the stream flowing away from it. Alex found the pretty garden to be a strange sight, considering how far below ground they were, but it was here, and no doubt it contained the key to task number two’s completion.
A splash broke the surface of the serene pool. Something was emerging from the water.
A creature dragged itself from the depths, clawing at the arc of the bridge with long fingers until it was fully out of the pool and lying across the wooden slats. It unfurled into a standing position, and Alex was surprised to see that the creature looked remarkably similar to the carving on the vault door, and the statue he had seen within the pagoda. The odd being looked like a kind of reptile, with the beak of a turtle and the shell too, and pale brown scales dotting its green body. Strangest of all, however, was the deep recess in the creature’s skull; it looked almost like a bowl, with water sloshing around inside.
Alex wasn’t sure what to make of the creepy thing as it ambled toward the bottom of the bridge, blocking the way from one side to the other. It was small in stature, but Alex knew not to judge an evil by its size.
“What is it?” Ellabell whispered.
“I think it’s called a kappa,” replied Aamir.
Alex looked at him. “A kappa?”
“Yes, it’s a mythical Japanese creature—my grandmother was big on myths and legends, and used to tell me all sorts, from all over the world,” Aamir explained. “I always loved the Japanese stories the best, and she told me about this being once or twice. I never forgot it. The dent in its skull gives it away… but I can’t remember what she said about them.” A look of frustration crossed the older boy’s face.
“I guess we’ll have to move it by force,” Alex said. Lifting his hands, he inched closer to the bridge, keeping his gaze on the reptilian eyes that seemed to be watching him with the utmost curiosity, a warped smile curving up the sides of its blunt beak.
“Are you going to fight me?” it said, its voice raspy and otherworldly. The sound took Alex by surprise; he hadn’t been expecting it to be able to speak. “I should warn you: I abhor rudeness, and I find fighting to be the height of rudeness,” it added, blinking slowly. “But do what you must do, and I will do what I must do…”
Chapter 8
Alex moved toward the kappa, his mind focused on forging anti-magic from his raised hands. After a moment, he realized that his energy wasn’t exactly playing ball, the anti-magic fizzling and spitting, refusing to create smooth threads. It was like he was back at Spellshadow again, in those first few days, unable to conjure anything. He tried again, but still the anti-magic fizzed and crackled. Without it to aid him, he was going to have to fight the kappa in hand-to-hand combat.
Frowning, he took another step toward the reptilian creature.
“So, it is to be a battle?” the creature rasped.
“We only want to cross this bridge,” replied Alex.
“I will stand in your way,” the turtle hybrid croaked.
Alex raised his fists. “Then you leave us no choice.”
The creature’s face twisted in displeasure. “Such impertinence!”
Aamir stepped up beside him, resting a hand on Alex’s arm. “Wait, I think there’s another way,” he whispered.
“You remembered something?” Alex asked.
“I think so—let me deal with this one.”
“Be careful.” Alex let Aamir move ahead of him, until he was standing face-to-face with the kappa.
“Excuse me, eminent guardian of this bridge, but I believe it is you who is the rude one,” said Aamir, with easy confidence.
The creature’s face morphed into an expression of horror. “How dare you.”
“How dare I?” Aamir countered. “You are the one blocking our way, when you know we desire to cross the bridge. That doesn’t seem particularly generous, does it?”
“It is my duty, intruder,” the kappa said, flashing a warning look from its wet, reptilian eyes.
“Have we done anything to make you suspect our intentions are anything but good? Have we sought to steal or destroy anything in your beautiful garden?” Aamir asked. “No, honored guardian, we have not. Our intentions are pure, and we wish only to cross the bridge. But you stand there, telling us you will not move. Surely, that breaks the bonds of guest welcome?”
The kappa smiled. “You are not guests.”
“Is a visitor not a guest?”
The kappa raised a scaly eyebrow. “I suppose, in a manner of speaking, they could be considered to be of similar origin, but you are no guests of mine. Nobody enters this place with altruistic intention—you wish to take something, and so you are intruders.”
“Be that as it may, our intentions are good. Surely, that makes us anything but intruders?”
It wasn’t yet clear to Alex what the older boy was trying to achieve with this battle of wits, but whatever Aamir’s goal, he was putting his silver tongue to good use.
“You have entered my domain without permission, and wish to cross without my permission, and so your manners bely your impertinence,” the kappa remarked.
“Then, please, may we cross your bridge, honored guardian?” Aamir asked.
The kappa shook his scaly head. “Certainly not. As long as I stand here, you shall not reach the other side.”
“Even if you were not here, we would not be able to cross it,” Aamir mused.
Alex glanced at his friend, understanding that Aamir was preparing to maneuver into his final play.
“I never leave my post,” the kappa countered.
Aamir smiled. “I am merely talking hypothetically. You see, you have deliberately made the bridge dangerous.”
“I have done no such thing!” said the kappa, clearly affronted by the accusation.
“You have. Your wet feet have made the wood slippery, no doubt as a means to trick us into falling into the water, should you lose at hand-to-hand combat. Once we fall in, you will simply pull us under, and do away with us,” Aamir replied, his eyes gleaming.
The kappa howled in outrage. “What proof do you have? You think me a lowly thing, to resort to tricks, simply because I dwell beneath the water?”
“No, my proof is far more logical than that. I can only use my eyes for such evidence,” Aamir insisted. “We would slip the moment we set foot on the bridge. Just look at the slick pools of water all around your feet.”
The kappa looked down to inspect its feet, and as soon as its head tilted, the water sloshing around in the bowl of its skull emptied out onto the grass. The kappa froze the moment the last few drops had fallen, its power source drained. It stood, statue-like, perched on the edge of the bridge, unmoving.
“What did you do?” Alex asked.
Aamir grinned. “Outwitted it. But we should get going in case it doesn’t stay like that.”
Lintz and Ellabell followed them over the bridge, leaving the kappa standing there, motionless. As they ran across, Alex noticed the word “Wit” carved into
the wooden balustrade at the end of the bridge.
Task two completed, he thought.
Pushing through another door, they entered a small chamber. It looked like a shrine, with two statues of twin gods, and a solitary goddess, set back into a recess that glowed with the luminescence of countless candles. Set up on tall candlesticks, facing the effigies, were four unlit candles, the wicks untouched, the wax unmelted.
Above the female statue, Alex could make out the word “Aletheia,” and above the male statues were the words “Phobos and Deimos.” They meant nothing to Alex, but Lintz looked thoughtful, the professor muttering the names over and over.
“Do you know who they are?” Ellabell asked.
Lintz nodded. “I believe the woman is the Greek equivalent of the Roman deity Veritas, the goddess of truth. There is a similar statue in the teachers’ quarters at Spellshadow. The other two, I’m not sure—my Greek mythology isn’t as good as my Roman.”
Ellabell wandered up to the shrine, where a book lay open in front of the deities. Alex watched as she leaned closer to the flames of the already-burning candles, the flickering light reflected in her eyes.
“I think it’s like a prayer,” she said. “These candles all have words carved into them… ‘death,’ ‘old age,’ ‘loneliness.’” She moved toward the book, reading it, as the others watched and waited for her verdict. “The female statue is the Greek goddess of truth, and the two twins beside her are the Greek gods of fear and terror. There’s a riddle here too. It says, ‘In order to uncover the secrets here, you must first unveil your greatest fear.’ I suppose we have to make an offering of our greatest fear to these deities, and light the candles as we say what it is.”
“Do you think we should carve the words into the candles?” Aamir asked.
Ellabell shook her head. “I think they’re there to serve as a guide.”
Alex had a feeling she was right. They were clues to the task, the lettering neat and impossibly uniform. Picking up a taper, Ellabell went first, moving toward the unlit candle closest to the door they had come through. She paused for a moment, her expression thoughtful.
“The dark,” she said, lighting the wick and blowing out the taper.
Alex went next, taking a minute to think of what he feared most. “Losing loved ones,” he murmured, envisioning his mother and Ellabell and all his friends, and the pain he would feel if anything were to happen to them. It was truly his greatest fear.
Aamir stepped up third. “Losing control.”
“Failing to reach the real world,” said Lintz, lighting the final candle.
As the flame of the fourth candle burst into life, the eyes of the deities flashed gold, and a narrow doorway creaked open on the opposite side of the room. The offerings had been accepted, and task three had been completed.
Moving into the next room, Alex saw the word “Unity” written above the door. Inside, it was pitch black, so dark he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The room was steeped in wall-to-wall, impenetrable darkness, and they couldn’t see each other, let alone anything farther ahead.
Alex heard the sharp inhale of frightened breath from somewhere close by him, and he reached his hand out instinctively, brushing skin.
“Ellabell?” he whispered.
“It’s me,” she replied, her voice trembling.
Suddenly, he became aware of scraping sounds, filling the room. Soft, weird noises, like fingernails dragging across stone, and Alex knew they weren’t alone in here. He grasped what he hoped was Ellabell’s hand, and pulled her closer to him, trying to calm her panicked breathing.
Something else reached out for him, brushing the base of his neck. He shuddered, trying not to shout out in alarm. No matter where he moved in the black room, he could feel things trying to grab him with unseen hands, and from the shrieks and cries of Lintz and Aamir, and the tremble of Ellabell in his arms, he knew he wasn’t the only one feeling terrified.
“Aamir, Professor, follow my voice!” he whispered, painfully aware of drawing attention to himself.
He needed everyone to be closer together, so they could figure out how to defeat this task. He heard the scuffle of shoes on stone as the others followed his instruction. They bumped into him, forming a cluster in their unknown spot in the room. All the while, he could hear low groans and rattling chains, and the scrape of something clawing along the floor. It was intended to unnerve them, he knew, and it was doing just that.
“What do you think we have to do?” Lintz asked, from somewhere close at hand.
“A teamwork exercise, maybe?” Aamir suggested.
Alex nodded, though he realized immediately that he couldn’t be seen. “The word above the door said ‘Unity,’ so the way out of here must have something to do with us working together.”
“Maybe we could start by figuring out the shape of the room, to figure out where the exit is?” Ellabell said. He could feel her chin turning up to look at him, even though they couldn’t see one another.
“Let’s form a chain and map out the space,” Lintz suggested.
It seemed like a good plan, but Alex wanted to make sure Ellabell was close to him at all times. In the previous room, she had admitted her greatest fear was the dark, and she was shaking like a leaf. It was the first time he had sensed true terror in her.
“Ellabell, if you’ll be the lynchpin, the rest of us will stretch out from you, and see if we can touch the walls. See if we can’t find a door in this place,” Alex said.
Everyone moved into position, with Ellabell in the center, her palm clammy as she gripped Alex’s hand. Lintz was in the center too, with Alex and Aamir on the outer edges, encumbered with the task of feeling out the walls. Slowly, they began to turn, Alex snatching his hand back every time it made contact with something fleshy. The chains rattled harder whenever he came near, but he refused to let it put him off. They had to find the exit—there was no time for meekness.
Pretty soon, Alex realized that the room itself was only as wide as the four of them stretched out to their full capacity, as they rotated to feel out the shape. From this, they garnered that it was a perfect square. The stone walls were moist with something unpleasant, but Alex pushed away his disgust as he called back to the others what he had found. Aamir did the same, until they had a complete idea of what the room looked like. However, they had found no door on any of the walls.
“Any luck?” Alex asked.
“No door here,” Aamir replied.
“What if there isn’t one?” said Ellabell, her voice fearful.
“In the famous words of Sherlock Holmes: at a crime scene, always look up… or, in this case, down,” suggested Lintz.
It was a good idea. Following the professor’s lead, Alex and the others began to search the floor, keeping close to one another as they made their sweep of the terrain. There was a thick mulch of something on the floor, and Alex didn’t dare imagine what disgusting things he would see on his hands when they reached some form of light again.
“I’ve found something!” Aamir shouted. “It feels like a trapdoor.”
Alex’s heart pounded faster. “Really?”
“Yeah, but there seems to be a padlock on it,” replied Aamir regretfully.
“Is there a key?” Ellabell asked.
“Sadly not.”
Just then, Alex thought he heard a furtive whispering. It was nearby, too close to be from the chain-rattlers and groaning ghouls, and it didn’t sound particularly monstrous. It sounded human. Stranger still, Ellabell’s hand had stopped shaking.
“I think I know where the key is,” she said a moment later. A skittering sound followed her announcement, as if something metallic had been kicked across the ground.
“Ellabell?” whispered Alex as she let go of his hand, stooping to pick something up.
“I have it here,” she said. “Aamir, where are you?”
“Over here.”
Alex felt Ellabell move away from him, clumsily picking her way tow
ard the spot where Aamir had found the trapdoor. Alex held his breath when he heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, followed by a satisfying click.
“It’s open!” said Aamir, delighted.
Alex exhaled, grateful it had worked, but still curious as to where Ellabell had found the key. He figured he’d ask her in a moment, when they weren’t in a room chock full of unknown creatures. There was no time to lose. He moved to where he thought Aamir to be, and found the empty gap of an opening in the ground. A rope ladder was attached to the side, and Alex clung to it as he made his fumbling way down, following the light that shone from below.
Task four completed; we’re a third of the way through, he told himself, dropping into the next room. They’d been lucky so far, moving through the challenges with relative ease, but, from here on, he had a feeling the tasks were only going to get harder.
Chapter 9
With everyone assembled, Alex was about to ask Ellabell how she had known about the key, but he had barely gotten through the first two words when she lifted her finger quickly to her lips and shook her head in warning.
At least she doesn’t look scared anymore, he noted.
Following her gaze, he saw why she had silenced him. The room was brightly lit, enough for Alex and the others to see the black dirt and reddish grime on their hands, but he barely had time to notice it. At the far end of the room stood an enormous mechanical Minotaur, flanked by two mechanical lions, their golden manes gleaming in the torchlight.
The whir of cogs springing to life had a similar effect on Alex, as he jumped into action mode. Throwing up his hands, he weaved anti-magic between his fingers, only to find his powers stunted again by the energies of the vault. Hadrian had warned them this would happen, but Alex hadn’t thought it would feel so frustrating. It seemed the others were having trouble too, as the golden glint of their magic fell flat, dissipating uselessly into the atmosphere. Alex had hoped their abilities might be returned to their full capacity as they progressed through the vault, but it seemed he was wrong.