A rock glanced off her arm. Temporarily speeding up, she flew higher.
“Are you all right?” Nate asked, flying up to her. He used his bat to deflect a stone that would have struck her in the back.
“Going at top speed wore me out really quickly,” Risa said. “Much faster than Trevor described. Even after I slowed to race mode, I got so woozy that I almost passed out. Everybody was shooting at me. I got spooked, climbed high, and slowed down. I came back as soon as I felt I could handle race mode again. I still don’t feel great.”
Nate yanked Risa to one side to help her avoid an arrow. “Can you keep flying in race mode?”
“I think so,” Risa said shakily.
“You better try,” Nate said. “If you hold still, they’ll pick you off.”
Down below, the illusionary Cleon flickered, and his actual self came into view. One of his arms hung limp at his side. Blood sheeted from a gash on his forehead. He fought on, one-handed.
Protector in hand, Chris took to the air, racing toward the gate. An arrow hit him, bouncing away harmlessly.
“Nate!” Katie cried from below. “Help guard the Protector!”
Risa started flying around at a higher speed, and Nate zoomed to help Chris. Apparently they were hoping that placing the Protector on the pedestal Risa had found might help the situation. Nate hoped it wouldn’t make everything worse.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Protector
Chris led the way through the open gate and into the neighboring chamber. The vast room had a high ceiling. A third of the spacious floor remained covered by warriors pressing toward the gate. The pedestal in the center of the room was unguarded.
On the far side of the room, a monumental statue stood against the wall. In form and stance, it matched the Protector perfectly—stocky, thick-limbed, with a large club in each hand.
Chris landed beside the pedestal and slammed the Protector down on top of it. The Protector took on a faint inner glow. Nothing else happened.
Most of the ceramic soldiers continued to surge toward the gate, but those toward the rear turned and headed for Chris. Several archers targeted Nate all at once, forcing him to dive and contort himself to avoid the volley of arrows. Despite his maneuvering, two arrows breezed close enough that he felt the wind of their passage.
In frustration, Chris jostled the Protector, evidently hoping that by shaking it enough he might make something happen. His actions caused one of the Protector’s arms to stretch out to one side. The arm of the larger statue extended in precisely the same way.
“Use the statue!” Nate called. “Use the big statue to fight the others!”
Chris tried to pick up the Protector, but failed. Gripping the legs, he made one of them step forward, then the other. The imposing statue took two steps away from the wall. Nate noticed a small door behind where it had stood.
Nate arrived at the pedestal, landing nimbly. “Cover me,” Nate blurted. “With the gum I’m better at this.”
Chris relinquished the Protector, and Nate began using the small statue to make the large one come bounding to their aid. As the first ceramic warrior reached the pedestal, Chris destroyed it with his bat. Chris waded forward resolutely. Spear tips snapped against his chest as each swing spewed ceramic chips into the air.
Lindy flew in to lend support. She landed roughly, and although she failed to bash soldiers as efficiently as Chris, she diverted the attention of many.
Nate only needed a few seconds. Under the influence of Peak Performance, he could visualize perfectly how to manipulate the Protector in order to make the big statue move exactly how he wanted.
Chris and Lindy hastily flew out of the way as the big statue stomped forward. A mighty swipe of one club blasted several ceramic warriors into confetti.
Nate swiveled the statue to attack in multiple directions. Swinging liberally, it shattered soldiers in droves. The tallest of the ceramic warriors failed to stand higher than the waist of the stout stone guardian. Weapons struck the massive statue harmlessly, as if the ceramic warriors were attempting to kill a mountain. Unfortunately for them, the mountain was fighting back.
Despite his elation at his success, Nate controlled the gigantic statue calmly. Lindy and Chris dealt with the warriors that slipped by, freeing Nate to concentrate on his demolition work. Risa zoomed by a couple of times in race mode, lending extra assistance.
The ceramic soldiers that had marched into the other room had now reversed their course. Nate made the giant statue plod forward until it stood at the gate to receive them. The ceramic forces advanced recklessly, and the big statue mowed them down until the air filled with dust and the area around the gateway became heaped with rubble.
Toward the end, Nate felt the effects of the Peak Performance dwindling. His hands began to feel a little clumsier, and the ways he needed to manipulate the small statue became less intuitive. But by then, the battle was essentially over. As he swiped at the remaining soldiers with less precise swings, Nate trusted the others to dismantle the stragglers. He decided to save his other two sticks of Peak Performance for whatever dangers might lie ahead.
Led by Katie Sung and Chris, the others pounded the remaining warriors until they lay broken and inert. Nate let go of the Protector and backed away from the pedestal. The huge statue stood motionless once more.
Cleon came limping through the gate, using an ancient spear as a crutch. He seemed to have use of both arms. Dried blood stained his face, neck, and shoulder, but no fresh blood was flowing. Jeanine strolled beside him, apparently unhurt.
“You all right?” Nate called as Cleon approached.
“Mr. White patched me up as best he could using my simulacrum,” Cleon said. “My leg took an ugly blow. I’m lucky I can walk at all.”
Risa leaned against the pedestal. “I’m dizzy and tired,” she said, head bowed. “Near the end, I was sure I would pass out.”
“What now?” Chris asked. Scars and dents marred his heavy baseball bat. His clothes were punctured and torn.
Katie motioned to the location where the statue had originally stood. Recessed into the wall was a small door, intricately carved with concentric circles and swirling patterns.
“It’s for short people,” Lindy noted.
“It’s too small for the big statue to fit,” Nate realized. “Whoever designed this place didn’t want us using the Protector beyond this room.”
“You’re probably right,” Katie acknowledged.
“Any idea what comes next?” Chris asked, bat resting on his shoulder.
“My guess?” Cleon said. “Something beyond that door will try to kill us.”
“Mind if we rest for a minute?” Risa asked. “The high-speed flying wore me out.”
“Take a load off,” Katie said. “We can’t proceed until we get this next door open.” She started toward the door.
Grunting and squatting, Cleon sat down on the floor. Risa sat down as well, leaning her back against the pedestal. Chris and Jeanine followed Katie.
Lindy sidled over to Nate. “No keyhole,” she whispered. “No seams. I can’t see through it, but I can see into it a little. It’s at least three feet thick.”
Nate sat down with his legs crossed. Lindy knelt beside him.
Katie stood nearly a head taller than the carved door. She ran her hands over it high and low, tracing some of the curvy lines etched into the surface. She applied pressure in certain places. Finally she backed away, hands on her hips, and asked generally, “Any theories?”
Nobody responded. Jeanine and Chris moved forward to take a closer look.
Katie turned to Nate. “Use the statue to break it down.”
“Worth a try,” Nate said. The Protector remained on the pedestal. As Nate used the little model to march the statue over to the door, he could feel that his gum had fully worn off. Still, guiding the statue while under the influence of Peak Performance had given him experience, so he managed to jerkily maneuver the statue into positi
on and kick the door. The foot struck with a dull thud. The door showed no sign of weakening.
“Use a club,” Katie recommended.
Nate shifted the position of the statue so he could swing a club low. A pair of blows accomplished nothing.
“Hit it hard!” Katie demanded.
Nate shifted the position again and took a big swing. The top half of the club broke off. The door appeared undamaged.
“Perfect,” Cleon spat.
“Contact Jonas,” Jeanine suggested.
Katie produced a small seashell and spoke into it quietly. She held it to her ear as if receiving a response. She spoke and listened several more times.
“Nate,” Katie called. “Remove the Protector from the pedestal.”
When Nate tried to lift the entire Protector, it felt glued to the top of the pedestal, which was strange because he had managed to lift individual legs with little problem. He had more luck as he tried to tip it with both hands. He found that constant effort slowly caused it to lean. As he tipped and lifted, he fought against what felt like a powerful magnetic attraction. With a final yank, the Protector came free. The big statue remained frozen in place. The small, thick door slid upward until it disappeared entirely.
“Bingo!” Cleon chuckled. “Boss knows his stuff.”
Katie murmured something into the seashell. She listened, nodded, then put it away. “Is everyone recuperated?”
Cleon used the spear to help himself rise. “I’m about as ready to die as I’ll ever be.”
The others got up as well. They gathered near the small doorway. Peering inside, Nate saw a long, narrow corridor.
“A Tank should lead the way,” Katie prompted.
“Out of the road,” Chris said, stepping through the doorway. “You guys back me up.”
Nate got another stick of gum ready. He dreaded to think what might await beyond the confining hallway. Lindy followed Chris, Nate tailed Lindy, and Katie entered behind Nate. The hall was no higher than the doorway. Chris was almost tall enough for the top of his head to brush the ceiling. Katie had to advance in a stooped position.
“I don’t see any enemies,” Lindy told Nate. “But the way ahead won’t be easy.”
Nate saw what she meant when he exited the cramped corridor. The hall opened into yet another large chamber. To the right, an enormous corridor led away from the cavernous room. The massive corridor was essentially a bigger, longer hallway full of moving obstacles like the passage that had guarded the Protector. Beyond the spinning blades, scything pendulums, jabbing spikes, twirling axes, and crushing pillars, Nate caught fleeting glimpses of a large, distant door.
“No way,” Chris said. “This is worse than Angel Island.”
“Much worse,” Lindy agreed. “It’s denser—more blades, bigger blades, more spikes. Many are faster than anything we saw in the other corridor. Some of the pillars are mashing together horizontally. I see evidence of trapdoors in the floor. Some of the holes in the wall have arrows and darts ready to fire. Plus it’s more than twice as long.”
Behind them, Nate noticed Katie speaking into the seashell. She regarded the frantic obstacle course with trepidation.
Risa approached the other Jets. “This isn’t fair! Is every hidden treasure guarded by a hall like this?”
“Iwa Iza hid the Protector,” Nate reminded her. “He also hid Uweya. Same designer.”
Risa shook her head in despair. “Do we seriously have to—”
Her words cut off without explanation. Nate looked over and saw that Risa was holding perfectly still. Chris was motionless as well. And Lindy. He decided he had better freeze himself.
“Please don’t panic,” Katie said. “Jonas has temporarily immobilized the four of you for security reasons. He expected something like this final gauntlet. Our prize should lie just beyond. We needed you against those warriors, and we thank you for your fine service. The good news is, you won’t have to make it through that deadly tangle up ahead. Jonas will use my simulacrum to boost me as he has never boosted anyone before, and the task of retrieving Uweya will be mine alone.”
“I’ve never heard them so quiet,” Cleon said.
“Can’t they speak?” Jeanine asked.
“Jonas wanted to paralyze you four quickly,” Katie explained. “As a consequence, he had no time for finesse. He’ll go back and make you a little more comfortable if you behave well. Free up your mouths and eyes, for example. Then, once Uweya is secure, he’ll release you entirely, and you can fly out of here, free to enjoy the fruit of your efforts.”
Nate remained motionless, although keeping completely still was turning out to be harder than he might have guessed. He was worried that he might sway a little, or move his arm, or shift his glance, or somehow give away the fact that he
remained in complete control of his body. The other Jets remained as immobile as wax figures.
Nate was positioned so he could see Katie. Her brow crinkled, and she lifted the seashell to her ear. Her alarmed eyes went to Nate. “Is somebody playing possum?”
The moment had arrived. It was now or never. The other Jets were out of commission. He knew where he needed to go. The amulet around his neck had obviously worked, preventing Jonas from freezing him, and now Jonas had noticed that something was interfering with his simulcry.
Nate still had the stick of Peak Performance in his hand. Shoving the gum into his mouth, he took to the air, rising quickly. Cleon, Jeanine, and Katie all shouted in dismay. Katie hurled her mallets at him with superhuman force, but the gum was already kicking in, and Nate narrowly dodged them. Gravity suddenly increased around him, dragging him down, but Nate found that if he angled down diagonally, he could slip away from the weighty pull. Each time he escaped, a moment later gravity would increase again as Jeanine refocused her power. But every time he slipped away from her increased gravity field, he climbed as much as possible before the downward tug hit him again. Overall, he kept gaining altitude instead of losing. After her seventh attempt to drag him down, Jeanine collapsed.
Nate took that opportunity as his cue and arrowed toward the deadly hall. He could fly, and his senses and coordination were enhanced, but his body was as vulnerable as ever. One wrong move and he would get shredded to ribbons. Even fully under the influence of Peak Performance, navigating the lethal hallway looked virtually impossible. He could see a way in, but even with his senses enhanced, Nate could not chart a complete route through from his current vantage. He hoped that he would somehow find ways to keep moving forward, yard by yard, foot by foot, without getting decapitated, flattened, or impaled. Gritting his teeth, he prayed that he and Peak Performance would be up to the challenge.
Nate entered the hall near the upper left corner. All of his senses were focused on survival. He tried not to get overwhelmed by the abundant lethal threats. He attempted to focus on the most immediate dangers, on how to survive one second to the next while still advancing. There was no time to plan, only to react. With desperate faith, he entrusted his life to his enhanced reflexes.
A huge blade swished by close enough that the metallic smell registered distinctly. Nate curved his body to avoid a thrusting spear, then ducked to barely dodge a pair of axes. He began to spin wildly, eyes roving, because it was the only way to see everything around him and avoid getting blindsided. He not only looked but listened.
Peak Performance offered no sense of security—even with the enhancement, he was stretched to his limits. Too much was coming at him too fast. He flew in strange new ways. Sometimes he flew feet first. Sometimes he flew spread-eagle. Sometimes he would drop or rise suddenly. He flew tucked into a tiny ball, he flew with his body ramrod straight, he flew in bizarre poses to dodge simultaneous slashes and stabs.
Nate didn’t think about reaching the end of the obstacles. There was no opportunity to examine how far he had come or how much farther he had to go. He only had time to twirl and tuck, to climb and fall, to flip and swoop and twist.
He made dozens of
split-second decisions. He chose to let a blade graze his back to avoid having an arrow plunge through his neck. He permitted a spear to nick his thigh to keep a speeding column from crushing his arm. When two ways to proceed presented themselves, he tried to estimate which was the lesser evil. There was no time to choose well.
Flying had never felt so exhausting. Nothing had ever felt so exhausting. He scantly avoided death over and over and over and over. How many near misses could a person survive? How many scrapes and scratches could one accept to avoid getting maimed or worse? There was no place to pause, no chance to regroup, only a host of fatal threats, followed by another barrage, and then another.
When he emerged from the far side of the obstacle course, it came as a shock. Nate flew to the ground and spread out his arms to embrace the floor. He had never felt so happy to be at rest. Little cuts and scrapes stung all over his body. He was truly stunned to be alive. Somewhere deep down, he had known that eventually he would reach a place where no amount of clever contortion would avoid a certain combination of threats. And that would have been the end.
Except he had survived. Would he have to fly back through the obstacles after reaching Uweya? Probably. He didn’t want to think about that yet. For now, the frenetic corridor separated him from his enemies. Maybe not for long, though. Katie would be coming after him. How long would it take for Jonas to empower her? Even with additional enhancements, would she be able to navigate the lethal corridor? He had to assume she would survive. He had to keep moving.
Instead of standing up, Nate flew to the door. It was more than three times his height. A metallic lever to one side of the doorway seemed the obvious way to open it. Nate pulled the lever. The door opened.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Uweya
Nate decided to walk through the doorway rather than fly. A short hall led into a circular room with a high, domed ceiling. The shape made Nate think of an observatory he had once visited. Thanks to his enhanced state, he took in many details, but his attention was not drawn to the tightly fitted stone blocks of the walls or ceiling, or the worktables positioned around the room, or the stacks of supplies against some of the walls. He found himself entranced by the familiar sphere floating in the center of the room.