It was then that Albert noticed the cave in the Pit’s wall.
The three awful hybrids were guarding its entrance. A firefall suddenly sparked to life too, liquid fire cascading over the entrance to the cave.
“A little adjustment,” Festus said, waving his arm. The firefall split like a curtain, revealing the inside of the cave. “And there you are. Your pathetic little friends.”
Birdie and Leroy were lying against the cave wall—or at least that’s what he thought he saw from the distance he was at. There were others in the cave, too, crumpled figures. Albert’s panicked mind screamed, They’re dead! But the calmer, braver side of him begged him to look a little closer.
Albert called forth the BinocuVision symbol and let his Tile do the work from there. His eyesight zoomed in until he was looking at his friends up close. They were both unconscious, their eyes closed as if they could be sleeping. They looked fine, not a single bump or bruise on them, not a single thread out of place on their clothing. He looked at the other people trapped inside. There were the two Core Cleaners who had disappeared, and the old Core Historian. But Albert couldn’t see if anyone’s chest was rising and falling with each breath because the firefall shut, covering them from view.
Were they alive?
Albert couldn’t bear to think of the alternative.
His mind was racing. How did Festus get to Birdie and Leroy? How had they been caught?
And then he thought, How could I have let this happen? It was stupid to leave Birdie and Leroy behind in the Main Chamber. Stupid to run away with Petra while his very best friends fought for the Core without him.
It was his fault they were trapped behind that fire.
“Only I hold the key,” Festus said, snapping Albert from his thoughts. He pointed to the right of the firefall, where a simple keyhole sat in the wall of the Pit. Festus reached up to his collar and pulled out a chain. It was black and thicker than the cord around Albert’s neck. Festus had the two Master Tiles, glittering black, and next to them dangled a golden key. “Get the key to turn off the fire, and voilà! Your friends are free.”
“Let them go,” Albert growled. His hands clenched into fists. He didn’t know when he’d moved closer to Festus, who was now less than a car’s length away, with a smug smile on his face. “Let them all go now.”
Festus simply nodded. “Oh, I will,” he said. “But first, you’ll have to prove you’re as powerful as me. Let’s see what you’re really made of, nephew.”
Albert took a deep breath. He would fight to save his friends, he had no doubt about that. But he could see the hurt in the Path Hider’s eyes. This wasn’t really about Albert.
“Don’t do this,” Albert said. “Please. You can still turn back. We can start over and be a family. You and me and my dad, and Pap.”
Apparently, it was the wrong thing to say.
Festus’s eyes practically glowed with fury. “We were never a family,” he said. “Never.”
Then he lifted his arms and the Pit sprang to life.
CHAPTER 30
The Fight to the End
This is just like any other Competition, Albert told himself. Only if I win, I get my friends back instead of a Medallion.
Two floating orange platforms appeared, and Albert felt like he was in a dream as he stepped onto one. Festus took the other, their eyes locked on each other the entire time.
“It’s all fun and games, nephew!” Festus said. “All fun and games, especially when someone gets hurt.”
He burst into laughter, and Albert’s body seized with fear. He could tell himself this was just like any other Competition in the Pit, but Albert knew, in the bottom of his soul, that this would be a fight to the death.
The CoreSword in his hand felt so small and pathetic. How could it possibly cut through the thick chain around Festus’s throat?
Albert looked over his shoulder at the exit door to the Pit. If he used Speed, he could probably be out the door in less than three seconds. But then his dad’s voice rang in his head. It’s incredibly powerful, made from the very same substance that created your Master Tile.
If Professor Flynn believed in the CoreSword, then Albert had no choice but to believe in it, too. Besides, it was all that he had left. His Master Tile was powerful, but not as powerful as the Path Hider’s two.
The platform sank down, down, down to the bottom of the Pit, seemingly deeper than it had ever gone before, as if Festus had tripled the size of the Pit.
Now Albert couldn’t escape if he wanted to.
Festus’s platform carried him up and over to the center of the Pit. He stared down at Albert, arms crossed over his chest.
“What is it they used to say, in Competitions?” Festus called down. His two Master Tiles twinkled even from such a distance. “Oh, yes. Balance Keepers . . . begin!”
Albert took off running across the Pit toward the firefall. Festus’s laughter boomed from overhead, making Albert’s knees tremble. Key or no key, he was going to get his friends out of here.
The bear-wolf lunged for him first, its awful jaws snapping.
Albert dove, rolled to his feet, and tried to go left.
But the lizard-beast came next. Its forked tongue shot out of its mouth, impossibly long. It was like the Poison Toads in Belltroll!
Albert leaped, narrowly avoiding a hit to his ankle. Now the bird swooped in, its beak clicking and clacking as it aimed for Albert’s head.
He ducked and dodged it, but landed a little too close to the firefall. There was a piercing slice of pain in his arm. Albert cried out and stumbled back.
A fresh burn bubbled up along his wrist.
“What’s the matter, Albert?” Festus laughed from above. “Too slow to defeat my hybrids?” He clicked his teeth and shook his head. “You’re the great Albert Flynn, bearer of the third Master Tile. Use it, you foolish boy!”
Albert’s head spun. He stumbled backward to the side of the Pit farthest from the creatures. Spots appeared in his vision.
“Poison,” he said to himself, remembering the river in the Cave of Fire. The Firefall must have been laced with it.
He had to think.
Festus was taunting him, and he wanted Albert to fail. But he also seemed like he wanted a true battle. The Master Tile . . .
I need to heal, he thought. He called forth Leroy’s Synapse symbol, and could nearly feel his brain pulsing with the need to see and calculate everything around him. I need a symbol for healing. . . .
The Black Book popped into Albert’s mind, like he was staring at a TV screen. There was the Black Book, the thousands of Tile symbols spread out across all the pages. His mind mentally flipped through it until Albert was staring at a symbol he’d never even known he’d seen.
It was like the red medical cross from history books.
Albert harnessed it, ordered the symbol to work for him.
He felt the dizziness fade, as if a cool bucket of water had been poured over his head. His limbs felt stronger, and though his burn didn’t disappear as he’d hoped it would, the pain faded to a dull throb.
Albert looked up at his uncle, floating safely above the chaos.
So much evil. So much hate in one man’s body.
“That’s all you’ve got?” Albert yelled. “Come down and fight me yourself! That’s what you want, isn’t it? To take my Master Tile from me? Come and get it!”
Festus’s voice boomed like he was speaking into the MegaHorn, but Albert knew it was the magic of his two Tiles. “We’ll fight,” he said, “but only if you make it up to me. Prove you’re a worthy opponent!”
Albert looked back at the firefall.
He could try to keep going, try to find a way around the hybrids and rescue his friends. Maybe with Hoyt’s Speed Tile? Or maybe he could use Creature Speak, to try and control them?
But the creatures saw him staring. The bear-wolf growled, and the lizard hissed, and Albert knew that he was wasting precious time. Even if he got through the creat
ures, he wouldn’t be able to get through that firefall. He could use a Tile to help protect him from the heat and the poison . . . but Birdie and Leroy and everyone else stuck behind it wouldn’t come out of there safely.
No, Albert couldn’t save them now. He had to get through Festus first.
He turned to look at the pillar.
Before his eyes, the outside layer of the pillar morphed into a massive staircase, spiraling its way around the rocky pillar. There wasn’t a guardrail or anything to hold on to, and the higher it went . . .
The harder the fall would be.
You have to do this, Albert. It’s the only way.
“I guess I’m coming to you, then,” Albert said with a growl.
He took one last look at the firefall, then shook his head and sprinted for the staircase.
He was almost to the first step when the bear-wolf lunged for him. Albert dove to the right, narrowly avoiding the creature’s swiping claws. He was barely back on his feet when the beast lunged again, snarling and spitting black liquid that oozed from its poisonous teeth.
Albert lashed out with his sword and the bear-wolf took a half step back.
But it wouldn’t be good enough.
Albert hadn’t trained in sword-fighting. How would he defeat a massive beast with a weapon he hardly knew how to use?
The creature snapped its jaws, and Albert twirled the sword in front of him to ward it off. Festus laughed from overhead.
That laugh is getting old, Albert thought. But he took his annoyance and funneled it into his fight. He swung at the beast once again.
The sword was too short. The bear-wolf swiped a claw, and Albert barely held on to the sword as beast and blade clashed.
It didn’t even cut through the hybrid’s fur!
“I protect my investments,” Festus said. “You think a simple sword can defeat my creations?”
Albert glared up at Festus. “This isn’t a simple sword,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow.
But it sure seemed like it now.
The blade wasn’t sharp at all. Where was the magical, mystical feeling Albert had felt when his dad first handed him the CoreSword?
Albert would have to use his Tile instead.
He tucked the sword into its sheath and called forth the Strength symbol.
Don’t be afraid, Albert thought.
He pictured Birdie, how she always tightened her ponytail and got ready for battle. Albert would channel her strength.
The bear-wolf advanced, and Albert clenched his fists and sprinted for it.
They both leaped at the same time, the bear-wolf with its jaws open and claws outstretched, Albert with his Master Tile’s power coursing through his veins.
For Birdie, Albert thought.
He swung his fist in midair.
There was a crack, and Albert felt the hybrid’s coarse fur against the back of his hand, felt the beast’s roar as the punch hit true.
The bear-wolf was no match for the Strength symbol. The great beast soared backward, ten feet, twenty feet, before slamming into the Pit’s rocky wall.
Then it lay still.
Albert gulped. The power scared him, but it also felt good.
He’d done it.
Then he looked up at his uncle. For once, Festus was silent, his jaw clenched tight.
Albert stepped calmly onto the staircase and began the climb.
Albert had barely made it ten steps when there was a single click, to his left.
His body reacted on instinct, calling forth the SlowMo symbol. The Master Tile responded, and Albert saw everything in slow motion.
A giant black spike jutted out from the pillar, moving at the speed of a snail.
In reality, Albert knew, it was moving like a strike of lightning, faster than should be possible.
Albert sucked in his stomach, and the spike pierced the air, inches from where he’d just been.
It didn’t stop there.
A second click, and a second spike jutted out, this one so sharp that its tip shined like a diamond.
“Oh, brilliant!” Festus clapped his hands in slow motion from above, and Albert gritted his teeth and forced his uncle’s voice into the background.
Spikes came like an army. So many Albert could hardly keep up, even with the SlowMo. He needed to get creative.
He conjured up Merge and harnessed the SlowMo and Speed symbols at once.
Every time one spike jutted from the wall in SlowMo, Albert had less than a second to duck or leap or flatten himself before he was skewered. But the Speed symbol rang true, helping Albert move like the wind.
He was halfway up the staircase now. The pillar seemed to have run out of spikes, and Albert shook the symbols from his mind.
“Oh, this won’t do,” Festus said. Albert was closer to him now and could make out the strange multicolored eyes that the Pegasus in Belltroll had feared so much. “I think, perhaps, we should turn the heat up.”
“Whatever you throw at me, you won’t win,” Albert said.
“You have the confidence of my brother,” Festus said back. “It’s time we crush that.”
Albert rolled his shoulders and got ready for the next attack.
At first, nothing happened.
He took another step up the spiral staircase, wondering what would come.
More spikes? Another hybrid creature?
Another step, and nothing.
He took one more, feeling a little braver, and suddenly it came.
A fireball blazed from the side of the Pit, soaring toward Albert like a rocket.
Albert was ready. Two circles, one half the size of the other, appeared in his mind.
Size Shift! His entire body grew smaller until he was half the size that he had been seconds before.
The fireball blazed right past him, where the other, taller Albert’s head had just been, and exploded into the side of the staircase.
Heat. So much heat. This wasn’t cool Core fire. No, this was real fire, the kind that could burn him to ash.
Albert thought of Leroy, how good his friend was at avoiding the most dangerous things, how he’d scurried up the side of a spiral pillar once in this very Pit, moving fast in the face of fear.
This one’s for you, Leroy, Albert thought, and as the fireballs raged, Albert raged, too.
Every explosion, Albert was ready.
A fireball shot from his left, and Albert’s tiny body flattened against the wall of the pillar. The fireball blazed past, but then another was coming from his right.
He squashed himself to the stairs, letting it soar past his head and explode against the Pit wall far away.
Sweat was dripping down Albert’s neck and back, the entire Pit’s temperature suddenly hotter than Calderon.
But he wouldn’t let that slow him down.
More fireballs, this time from all sides.
Albert called forth Double Vision, one he’d used before in this Pit, too, but this time, conjuring up the image was as easy as breathing.
It was like he had a second pair of eyes. When a fireball shot from behind him, Albert saw it from the back of his head. He twirled, stooped to his knees, and let the fireball explode just over his shoulder.
Another came, and another.
One singed his shoulder, and Albert cried out as a burn bubbled on his skin, melting through his shirt. The pain made him lose control of the Size Shift symbol, and he popped back up into his normal size.
“Not so fast, are you?” Festus shouted.
But his voice was angrier than it had been. He knew Albert was getting closer, and he wasn’t happy.
At least Albert seemed to have reached a height on the pillar that was out of the fireball zone. What could be worse than fire?
Spinning. So much spinning.
The pillar was rotating and it made even the speed of the Pillars of Ponderay look like child’s play. The staircase spun so fast Albert felt like his face was going to fly right off.
He stooped to o
ne knee to lower his center of gravity and grabbed the staircase-pillar’s rocky wall with his fingertips. But the handholds were so tiny. Even if Albert used the Shrink symbol again, he’d probably slip.
He needed something. . . .
The stairs disappeared beneath him.
Suddenly, impossibly, the staircase had turned into a slide coated in slippery black oil. Albert began to slide. Too fast, way too fast, and he knew he was slipping back into fireball territory.
Oil, he thought. Oil is flammable!
Think! Albert told himself. THINK, ALBERT!
His arms flailed.
He scrambled to grab hold of something, but Festus was laughing so loud, and his mind couldn’t focus. He felt so weak, falling, falling . . .
Just like in Belltroll, when Spyro was falling from the sky.
“Float!” Albert yelled through gritted teeth. Somehow saying the symbol’s name made it all the more real.
Suddenly he was floating. He imagined himself floating up, just above the surface of the slide, so the oil couldn’t touch him any longer. He flipped onto his stomach, like Superman.
Then he reached out and used his hands to push himself along the side of the pillar, as if he were an astronaut hauling himself through a spaceship in zero gravity. Up and up he went, following the spiral pillar’s shape.
Albert didn’t look at Festus. He just looked straight ahead, pulling himself higher, until the slide suddenly faded and the stairs reappeared in its place.
Albert released the symbol’s power and sunk to his stomach, gasping for breath. His brain was going to explode.
His heart might explode too, and his lungs with it. He was so tired.
Good will always win in the end, Albert’s dad’s voice rang in his head.
There was still a chance for Festus. There was still a chance for his uncle to change this, turn it all around for good.
“You can stop this!” Albert said through gasps. He knelt on the staircase, his head leaning against the rough rocky wall to the left, and looked up at his uncle. “You can stop this right now and we can turn in our Tiles together! We can fix this, Festus. It’s not too late!”