Underworlds #3: Revenge of the Scorpion King

  Everything in this place was beautiful — the sand, the stone, the tower. But I was getting the feeling that the night wasn’t the only dark thing here. There was a lot of anger and cruelty. Curses and revenge. And now Loki was in the mix.

  The perfect ingredients for one colossal mess.

  Careful to keep hidden from the guards on the city wall, we crept around the edge of the courtyard. The hot night was heavy with the sickly sweet smell of the vines and blossoms hanging from the tower.

  Until the smell was covered by something else.

  “Ugh, what is that stink?” whispered Panu, waving the air in front of his nose.

  Sydney shuddered. “It’s Fenrir!”

  “Loki’s wolf!” Jon gasped. “Hide!”

  “INSIDE THE STATUE!” PANU DIRECTED US.

  “Inside —?” Dana said.

  “It’s hollow!” Panu swung open a compartment on the back of the statue, tugged us inside, and pulled the door closed.

  Through the flaring nostrils of the statue’s beak we saw Fenrir pad warily into the courtyard.

  Fenrir was three times the size of any normal wolf and had wiry red fur, a head as big as a garbage can, and breath that smelled like one. Each fang was at least a foot long, his yellow eyes burned with a sickly fever, and he breathed stinky flames. He was not your standard wolf.

  Just behind Fenrir strode Loki himself, and I felt my heart sink. Looking as if he owned the place, his expression cold and cruel, Loki seemed more evil than ever. The torchlight reflected off his powerful armor, which shone as brightly as the moon overhead.

  I thumbed the lyre’s lowest string gently, to mask the presence of Dana’s stolen glove. It barely made a sound, but I knew it worked when Loki ignored the statue and turned to the shadows behind him.

  “My dear Kingu, lord of the legendary fire monsters,” he said icily, “join me on my journey to Asgard, the throne of the Norse gods. The trek will begin soon, and you will prove very useful.”

  The sound of Loki’s voice made my skin crawl, and I felt Dana tense beside me. We all knew that Loki’s “journey to Asgard” was code for his war against Odin.

  A low voice emerged from the shadows across the courtyard. “I tell you again, Loki, my curse prevents me from leaving the Underworld. I am a prisoner.”

  A figure moved in the shadows, and a sharp scent stung through the openings of the statue.

  “That’s the smell of venom,” whispered Panu. “Now prepare yourselves….”

  Kingu, ruler of the fire monsters, entered the courtyard. The torch flames instantly dimmed. But even in the darkness, there was no mistaking what he was.

  A giant insect.

  Kingu’s body, over ten feet tall, was formed of overlapping black plates that shifted as he moved. His legs — eight of them — looked like jackhammers, hinged with massive talons on the ends. He had industrial-size pincers for arms. His head was enormous, knobby, and angled, and his jaws looked like mechanical claws. Each large eye was yellow and deep, like fire blazing at the end of a long tunnel.

  Jon gasped. “He’s a … bug!”

  “Scorpion,” whispered Panu. “The Great God cursed him into the shape of a deadly desert scorpion. Kingu is now the Scorpion King. He lives as a prisoner in the Underworld.”

  It was the long, thick tail arching up behind him that freaked me out the most. It split into two points, with a claw-tipped, venom-filled stinger on the end of each one. The stingers twitched and moved back and forth, as if they could see everything going on. Creepy.

  “Time is of the essence,” Loki said.

  “Is it?” Kingu clacked his pincers, and two lion-headed soldiers walked in, carrying an ornate box between them. “The moon rises, falls, rises, falls. It is eternal night in my Underworld. I am cursed to remain here, staring at the heavens and seeing only darkness.”

  “I seek my revenge on Odin,” said Loki. “He wounded me once, long ago. It was the last time he will do so. Your beasts — and you — can aid me.”

  Kingu nodded at the soldiers. They opened the box, then withdrew. “I also seek revenge against a great god. When I am free, all gods shall bow in fear.”

  With a strange pinging sound, a motorized bird rose from the box. It flapped its metal wings and circled the courtyard swiftly.

  Zap!

  One of Kingu’s tail stingers shuddered, and the motorized bird fell to the ground like a stone. Loki’s eyes darkened when a second bird flew up out of the box. “Help me now, Kingu, and I will help you….”

  Zap! The second bird fell.

  Loki’s expression was frozen as he watched a third bird take flight. I tried to see Kingu’s stingers moving, but they were too fast.

  “You may not have heard of the Twilight of the Gods, Kingu,” Loki said. “It is the final battle and the defeat of Odin. It has been predicted.”

  “Warring against gods is dangerous,” Kingu said. “I am proof of that, cursed to an eternity of darkness.”

  Zap! The third bird fell.

  “Yes,” said Loki, clenching and unclenching his one gloved fist. “But soon I will have a weapon to conquer all weapons.”

  Dana caught her breath. “The Crystal Rune,” she whispered. “He’d better not hurt my parents….”

  “The final battle begins with the fabled Fires of Midgard,” Loki went on, petting Fenrir’s wiry fur.

  “Midgard,” said Kingu. “Is that not your name for the middle world, the world of humans?”

  They were talking about our world. My blood went to ice all over again.

  “In order for me to reach Odin’s great hall, all of Midgard must burn to ash,” said Loki frostily.

  “Burn!” Sydney whispered in my ear. “That’s why he wants the fire monsters. It all makes sense….”

  “The fire monsters of Babylon’s Underworld are renowned among all beasts,” Loki continued, looking sharply at Kingu. “Immortal. Angry. Destructive. I need all of them. And you, of course.”

  Kingu eyed a fourth bird as it circled the courtyard and settled on the end of the statue’s beak. Jon pulled back.

  “I understand,” Kingu said. “But I am bound to the Great Tower. At the top are the Tablets of Destiny. Return the Tablets to me, and I shall give you control of the beasts forever. In doing so, you shall lift my curse, and I shall be free.”

  Loki narrowed his eyes at Kingu. “And that is all? Surely someone with your power could climb the tower and easily retrieve the Tablets for yourself.”

  “Not so easily,” said Kingu slowly. “The curse is as twisted as this shape you see me in. It includes two riddles. The first is that the monsters have been turned viciously against me. They will do everything to prevent your climb to the top.”

  Loki’s lips twitched. “I have my powers, too.”

  Kingu nodded. “You must subdue each beast to pass from one level to the next.”

  “How clever,” said Loki coldly, touching the rune stone on his armored breastplate. “I must battle the monsters to earn the right to lead them. And the second riddle?”

  Zap! The statue reverberated like a gong as Kingu’s stinger destroyed the fourth mechanical bird. He turned to Loki. “The second riddle can only be solved at the summit. It is not to be puzzled out here.”

  Loki’s eyes flared, then darkened as he touched the stone on his breastplate again. He glanced at Fenrir, whose eyes flared as his had. When he turned back to Kingu, Loki wore a broad smile.

  “My dear Kingu, I came to your Underworld for the fire monsters. Now I see my real duty is to free you from your curse! I will subdue the beasts, climb the tower, retrieve the Tablets of Destiny — and free you.”

  “Then come this way,” Kingu said, turning his great scorpion head toward the tower. The two gods and Fenrir left the courtyard together. When we were sure they were gone, we tumbled out of the statue.

  “Loki has no intention of helping Kingu!” said Sydney. “I know that creepy look. Those dark eyes. And touching his rune like that? He??
?s probably already hatching some evil plan to use his runes to control the monsters, steal the Tablets, and betray Kingu.”

  Panu frowned. “You had better hope he doesn’t, for everyone’s sake. What did he call what he’d do to your world?”

  “The Fires of Midgard,” said Dana.

  I looked up at the tower. It seemed a mile high, and every inch of it guarded by monsters.

  “I know we’re tired and scared,” I said, “but we’ve got to get to the top of that tower.”

  “But you heard Kingu,” said Sydney. “The beasts will do everything to stop us. Plus Loki has his runes, and all we have is a glove and a lyre.”

  “We can’t let Loki get those Tablets,” I said.

  Panu frowned. “Is there really no other way to stop him?”

  Fenrir howled twice in the distance.

  “There isn’t,” said Dana, staring up at the colossal, dark tower. “Though I think we all wish there was.”

  Panu breathed a long sigh. “Then, come on. I’ll take you to the tower. With a couple of clever shortcuts, we may even get there first!”

  Jon sighed. “Lucky us.”

  WE HURRIED BEHIND PANU THROUGH ONE DIM, twisting passage after another.

  The air was hotter and heavier the closer we got to the tower, and all I could think of was Kingu, trapped in an Underworld where it was always night, always felt like a thousand degrees, and he was always in the body of a scorpion. What had he said?

  Cursed to an eternity of darkness.

  If that didn’t make you want revenge, nothing would. Still, if Kingu had warred against a greater god, wasn’t he just as bad as Loki?

  “Down this alley, and we’ll reach the tower before Loki does,” Panu whispered.

  I still wasn’t sure I trusted the lion-headed boy, either. Panu liked Kingu, who seemed dark and cruel, and very powerful. But all my brain could tell me was one thing: Stop Loki from finding the Tablets.

  Kawwww!

  A dark, winged shape dived straight down from somewhere in the upper levels of the tower, and we ducked into the shadows. Its wingspan was a good twenty feet from tip to tip. At the last second, it swooped up over the city streets, and we noticed human legs and arms among the feathers.

  “Whoa,” Jon gasped. “Is there a guy riding that big bird?”

  “No, that’s Birdman,” said Panu. “Half man, half raptor, and one of the seven beasts. Beware his razor-sharp talons. This way —”

  Two more passageways, an empty square, a set of steps, and finally we were at the base of the enormous tower. It seemed even hotter here. While Sydney and Jon followed Panu ahead, Dana paused next to me. Her eyes were pained, and she rubbed the wrist of her armored hand.

  “Is it the glove?” I asked. “Does it hurt?”

  She stared at the tower for a long second, then shook her head. “No. I mean, yeah, but it’s not that. It’s the Fires of Midgard. My parents read me the original myth. It’s horrifying. Our world is supposedly turned to ashes. I wish I knew how the Crystal Rune is involved. I just can’t remember that part of the story.”

  No one knew that part of the story. Maybe it wasn’t even written yet. That was the problem. Or one of the problems.

  We had so many.

  “Look, if we can get to the Tablets of Destiny, maybe we can stop Loki today. And that will be the end of all this,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. “No fires. No war. No Crystal Rune. No Loki. Everything goes back to normal.”

  Dana looked at me, then down at the tattered book in her bag. “Maybe. I just wish I knew more.”

  Waiting by the archway at the base of the tower, Panu was obviously afraid. “I might be more help to you if I work my way up the outside. To there.” He pointed a paw up at the tower’s summit.

  “Good idea,” I said. “It’s our mission, not yours —”

  “I smell Fenrir on his way,” Dana said. “So we’d all better hurry.”

  Panu nodded. “Until I see you at the top!” With a quick wave, he galloped down a curved passage. We were alone.

  “Strange guy,” said Sydney. “And by ‘guy,’ I mean ‘lion.’”

  We had no time to waste, so we slipped under the arch and entered the tower. The instant I stepped into the vast open room, my limbs felt like lead and my heart sank to my knees. Dana almost fell down, her legs wobbled so suddenly. That was the effect the tower had on us.

  “This tower is cursed, all right,” whispered Jon, peering up at the distant ceiling. “And it’s so huge.”

  The ground level was the distance of a dozen football fields from wall to wall, but otherwise bare. The floor was a mixture of sand and stone packed as hard as concrete, and flaming torches dotted the walls as far as we could see. The ceiling was high, and a thick rope dangled all the way down from it but stopped about twenty feet above the floor.

  Jon’s eyes went wide. “Are we supposed to climb up to the next level on that?”

  “It looks easy enough to get under the rope,” said Sydney. “But reaching it will be a different story. What are the monsters again?”

  Dana flipped open her Bulfinch’s. “Aside from Birdman and Fire Serpent, there are Thornviper and Mad Dog and …”

  Thump-thump-thump! The floor quaked beneath our feet.

  “… Mammoth,” Dana whispered, closing the book. “Mammoth was another one.”

  “Mammoth?” I said. “As in the big, wooly thing that trampled cavemen —”

  The floor shuddered so violently that we fell to our knees. Dana swung all the way around, aiming her gloved hand at any movement in the dark distance.

  Suddenly, the room echoed with the low trumpeting of what could only have been a prehistoric beast, the ground shook again, and there was a mammoth. It was the kind of thing you’d see in a science museum. Except that he was twice the size of any fossilized museum mammoth.

  And alive. Very alive.

  He bounded across the floor, his shaggy black fur waving like a forest of Spanish moss. One gigantic bloodred tusk jutted out from each side of his head like medieval lances, their tips burning with blades of fire.

  “Scatter!” Sydney screamed as the mammoth bore down on us.

  While Dana and I took off one way and Sydney the other, Jon froze, his mouth hanging open, his eyes like saucers.

  The beast seemed to like the unmoving target, because he charged full speed at Jon.

  Blam! Dana sent a bolt of light at the mammoth with her glove, but it bounced off the beast’s thick hide. Worse, Dana sank to one knee and clutched her quivering wrist. “Owen, the lyre!”

  I pulled the lyre from its holster and plucked the strings one by one, hoping to trip the mammoth. None of the strings did anything at all, until I tried the last one. Its pitch was as low and deep as the mammoth’s roar, and it reverberated against the walls.

  Ooooong.

  The sand on the floor rippled once, and the mammoth’s tree-trunk legs slid apart. He crashed to his knees, and everything shook violently.

  All of a sudden, there was a familiar stink, and Fenrir leaped into the giant room.

  “Like we needed him!” said Dana.

  Catching sight of us, Fenrir snorted, and his nostrils brewed up a fiery belch.

  Loki strode in behind him, his neck gleaming with several rune necklaces. Then he saw us, and his eyes flashed in rage. “You!” he shouted. “Always you! You followed me to Babylonia? No doubt the lyre helped you somehow, but now I will end you once and for all —”

  But Dana let loose a blast before that could happen. Blam! The force of it knocked her back on her heels, and she groaned.

  Loki grabbed the flame out of the air. “Don’t play if you don’t know the rules, Miss Runson! I’ll have that glove — and you — before this day is over!” He fired off his own bolt. I pulled Dana out of the way, and the floor we’d just been standing on exploded.

  The mammoth reared up on his hind legs and let loose a roar that shook the walls. That’s when I noticed that the mammoth stoo
d a good twenty feet tall on his hind legs — the same distance from the floor to the rope.

  Despite my fear, my brain was still able to add two and two. “We’ll use him to get to the next level,” I mumbled.

  Jon looked at me, then the mammoth, then the rope, then back at the mammoth.

  “That’s crazy,” he said.

  Then Fenrir charged, Loki aimed, and Mammoth attacked all at once.

  We ran.

  While my fingers busily plucked the one workable string of the lyre, I glanced at Dana.

  Blam-blam-blam! Bolt after bolt of silver light sprayed across the room, and Loki and Fenrir dived away, while the lyre’s note drew Mammoth to us.

  With one final twang, Mammoth’s fat feet skidded out from beneath him. It was enough. We grabbed his fur and hung on for dear life.

  “You will not!” Loki shouted. He shot bolts at us one after another. The beast thrashed and bucked, but we climbed onto his head. Plucking the lyre’s string in one ear, then the other, I steered the mammoth to the center of the room.

  “Up! Up!” Sydney cried, and we leaped from the mammoth’s back onto the rope. That made it start swinging wildly, which was actually a good thing because none of Loki’s blasts connected with us. We climbed hand over hand all the way up to the ceiling, through the opening, and into the tower’s second level.

  Looking back, I saw the rune on Loki’s breastplate glow and the mammoth slow to a stop. Loki tied a rune onto his tusk, and the creature bowed to him. “He got him,” I said, shaking my head.

  “But we got out!” said Jon, on his feet and looking around. “And we’re still alive!”

  I wanted to cheer, but I didn’t like the look of this new level. The floor was a weird mat of thorns from wall to wall. On the far side of the room, a thick, thorny vine snaked up from the floor to the ceiling.

  There wasn’t a monster in sight.

  “This must be Thornviper’s lair,” Dana said as we hurried toward the vine. “I wonder what a thornviper actually is.”

  Ssss …