by Brandon Mull
Cole peripherally sensed Violet emerge from the wayport and close it.
The three of them gazed up at the castle. Was it staring back? Cole could identify no eyes, but he felt seen.
“What now?” Jace asked quietly.
“Not sure,” Cole said. It seemed inappropriate to talk. He wasn’t even sure he should blink.
They continued to stare.
“Does it know we’re here?” Violet eventually whispered.
Without any proof, Cole nodded.
The castle remained still.
“Hello?” Jace called.
Cole flinched at the volume. The word fell flat, swallowed by the silence.
“We’re not alone,” Jace muttered.
“Could you have transported us into the courtyard?” Cole asked.
“The courtyard is protected by walls,” Violet said. “Wayminders don’t trespass.”
“Does that have to include empty castles made by magic clouds?” Jace asked.
“Didn’t we want to make sure the castle was worth entering?” Violet replied.
“Hard to tell from out here,” Jace complained.
An enormous voice emanated from the castle, resonant and deep, loud without straining. “ENTER IF YOU DARE.”
Cole felt the voice in his chest as well as heard it with his ears. He glanced at his friends. Both appeared uncertain.
“How would we enter?” Cole asked.
The drawbridge swung outward, chains unspooling noisily, until it thudded heavily against the ground. A portcullis behind the drawbridge raised high enough for a person to duck beneath it. Then all became silent again.
“Should we go in?” Jace asked.
Cole studied the castle suspiciously. “I’m not sure about this.”
“TREASURES UNTOLD AWAIT,” the penetrating voice said.
“What treasures?” Cole asked.
“RICHES BEYOND IMAGINATION,” the voice said. “SECRETS OF CREON. MYSTERIES OF THE TORIVOR RAMARRO.”
“Tell us about the mysteries,” Cole said. “Tell us about Ramarro.”
“HE WHO DESIRES THE TREASURE MUST ENTER,” the voice asserted.
After drawing his Jumping Sword, Cole touched Violet with his free hand and made sure their connection was strong. “Stay ready.”
She gave a nod.
Cole reached for Jace’s rope.
“Sambria, remember?” Jace said, expanding his rope slightly and twirling it. “Works fine here.”
“I forgot,” Cole said.
“Time to die bravely,” Jace said, striding forward.
The castle remained still and silent as they approached the drawbridge. Was it actually a bridge if it spanned no moat or trench? When they stepped onto the drawbridge, the voice spoke again.
“TRESSPASSERS NOT INTENDED TO RECEIVE THE TREASURE MUST SURELY PERISH.”
Cole paused. The others looked at him. “We’re going after Ramarro,” he said. “Dandalus knows that. Let’s hope this is meant for us.”
“And if not,” Violet said, “I’ll open a wayport back to the skycraft.”
Cole, Jace, and Violet crossed the rest of the drawbridge and ducked under the portcullis together. They had not taken more than a step beyond it before the portcullis crashed down. Quick as a mousetrap, the drawbridge slammed shut with thunderous finality.
“This treasure better be good,” Jace muttered.
They proceeded into the abandoned courtyard, the vast castle before them, the wall behind and around them. No signs of life disturbed the stillness. And yet Cole felt sure they were not alone. He kept checking over his shoulders, turning as he walked.
“I don’t see an entrance to the castle,” Cole said.
Up ahead, a flight of steps led to a blank wall. No doors into the castle were in view. The lower levels had no windows.
“I see balconies,” Jace said.
“Now that we’re inside will you open a wayport?” Cole asked.
“Into the castle?” Violet asked. “I don’t feel good about that. In fact, the interior of the building feels shielded from my mind. Somebody took measures to keep Wayminders out. But I could now go anywhere in the courtyard, including a balcony.”
“Do it,” Cole said, maintaining his connection to her power without physical contact.
“SURVIVE THE TRIAL TO OBTAIN THE REWARD,” the voice declared.
An oval disturbance appeared near Cole. He stepped through onto a large balcony high above the courtyard. Jace and Violet promptly joined him.
A door led from the balcony into the castle.
For an instant.
Then the surrounding wall swallowed the door. The portal vanished without a trace, leaving only stone blocks. The wall also filled in the nearby windows.
“This might be harder than it—” Jace began.
Without warning the balcony detached from the side of the castle and plummeted toward the courtyard.
Cole separated from the balcony in the air before he could kick off it with his Jumping Sword. He watched in shocked terror as he plunged toward the ground. Without someplace to jump from, his sword was useless. The golden rope snaked around him, pulling him close to Jace and Violet. While one end of the rope bound them together, the other stretched to the balustrades of a different balcony, and suddenly they were swinging instead of falling.
The detached balcony smashed below them as the threesome swooped sideways, angling downward at first, then curving upward with terrific speed. The golden rope went limp as the balcony to which it was attached broke from the castle as well. Once again Cole and his friends were sailing through the air. Still holding them together, the golden rope spiraled beneath them into the form of an enormous spring that absorbed the impact and deposited them safely onto the ground. Off to one side, the second balcony crashed to the courtyard in an explosion of shattered stone.
“Thanks, Jace,” Cole said. “We were goners.”
“Don’t relax yet,” Jace warned.
Statues were detaching from the castle, stepping fully carved out of the stone walls like divers emerging from deep water. The life-size men, women, and children left behind no holes or indentations, and no carvings hinted at their presence before their arrival. Each of the statues carried a stone weapon—mostly clubs, swords, and spears. Cole could not tell whether the stone personages had waited fully formed within the walls and were now passing through the barriers, or if the castle was spontaneously creating them, but all the stone people moved quickly toward him and his friends.
“No fair,” Cole said, retreating away from the castle.
The statues went from walking fast to running, stone faces contorting in anger. Cole turned and ran toward the outer wall only to find much larger statues emerging from the soaring fortification, four and five times the height of a man. A bearded giant with a huge war hammer paced toward him, footsteps shaking the ground.
Jace used his golden rope to pick up the statue of a knight and heave it into the statue of a hooded monk. The monk went flying, and the knight lost his head and one arm. Then Jace bashed the damaged knight into a shepherdess with a stone crook. With a resounding crash, she went down as the knight broke in half.
Cole saw that fighting would not solve this problem. They were drastically outnumbered. Running would not work for long either. Dozens of statues were converging on them from all directions. More continued to surface from the ground and emerge from the walls.
“Should we go?” Violet cried.
Jace used his rope to whip the feet out from under the nearest statues as quickly as he could. The disruption was not enough. There were too many. Cole and his friends would be overrun any moment.
Cole still felt a solid connection to Violet’s power. “We should probably go.”
A wall sprang up out of the ground, dividing him from Violet. Another separated him from Jace, trapping Cole in a narrow alley. Statues closed in from ahead and behind.
He glanced up. The sudden walls were about twenty
feet high. Cole pointed at the top of the nearest and shouted, “Away!” He jumped, and the sword pulled him upward. His momentum died at the top of the wall, allowing him to land lightly.
The top of the wall was only about six inches wide. Despite landing gently, Cole lost his balance. Pointing to a spot in the courtyard well beyond the mob of statues, Cole yelled “Away” and kicked off the wall before he lost contact. He streaked through the air toward his destination. The sword decelerated him right before he landed, but Cole still stumbled. Jumping down tended to be more jarring than jumping up.
He had practiced with the new Jumping Sword back at Skyport. The range was similar to his previous Jumping Sword, meaning he could spring to the lower balconies of the nearby castle with a single bound, but the tops of the towers were well out of reach without multiple jumps.
Many of the statues turned to charge Cole. Several of the new statues emerging from the walls came his way as well. A statue of a huge barbarian woman dressed in animal skins detached from the outer wall and stalked toward him, a chain mace in her mighty grip.
Cole saw the golden rope uncoil like a giant spring to propel Jace away from the attacking statues. Jace landed nimbly and used the rope to yank the foot of a giant statue, noisily toppling the brute. A new wall sprang up, blocking his friend from view.
Cole could still feel his connection to Violet and kept pushing energy to her power, but he worried how she was handling the statues. If he felt their connection, she had to be alive. But was she being apprehended or injured? Would she open a way and flee to outside the castle? Had she fled already?
“Over here!” Violet called from across the courtyard. The shimmering wayport beside her vanished, another opened, and one appeared beside Cole as well. Violet stepped into the new wayport and emerged beside Cole.
“Should we go?” she asked.
“We have to get Jace,” Cole said.
A wall shot up between them.
Statues were closing in, so Cole sprang to the top of the wall, landing the jump this time. Looking over the far side, he saw Violet disappear into a wayport just before the statues arrived. New walls erupted at unpredictable intervals, partitioning the courtyard into a labyrinth.
Did the castle know Violet was a Wayminder? Or did it just generally try to separate groups?
The female statue with the chain mace stood tall enough to still reach Cole. He jumped away an instant before the spiked ball smashed the top of the wall into fragments. Cole knew he would have too much momentum to land his jump to the top of the next wall, so he shouted “Away” again as he sprang off the next surface he touched, aiming for the ground this time.
As Cole staggered to a stop, Jace yelled, “The castle!”
Unable to see what his friend meant, and with more statues racing at him, Cole sprang to the top of another wall and, pivoting at his waist, arms extended, managed to keep his balance. He promptly realized that a pair of open doors had appeared at the top of the steps at the front of the castle. They had not been there before.
Jace used the rope to slingshot himself in that direction. Cole could feel each time Violet opened a wayport as her power required more energy. For the first time it was becoming an effort to sustain her.
Cole thrust his sword at the top of a wall halfway to the front doors of the castle and shouted, “Away!” He yelled the command again as he landed, skipping onward to the top of the steps.
Jace arrived a moment before him. After Cole landed, a wayport opened, and Violet appeared beside him. Beyond the open doors stretched an empty hall.
“Do we go in?” Violet asked, panting, her hair even wilder than normal.
The walls in the courtyard sank into the ground, allowing an enormous mob of statues, big and small, to charge directly at them. Cole was unsure what to do. With Violet and Jace beside him, it presented a chance for all of them to escape through a wayport. But did the open doors mean they were passing the test? Was the valuable information about Ramarro down that hallway? Or was the castle simply herding them in that direction to destroy them?
“Come on,” Cole said, rushing through the doors.
Jace and Violet sprinted beside him.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jace said.
“Me too,” Cole replied. “Be ready to make a wayport out of here, Violet.”
“I can’t see in here,” Violet said. “Or out of here. Just like how I couldn’t see in from outside.”
“Try,” Cole said, flooding power into her.
“I am, Cole,” Violet said. “My mind is blind in here! I’m trying! I can’t open a way if I can’t see.”
Glancing back, Cole saw the mob of statues clattering after them. He and his friends raced up a stairway at the end of the hall, then rushed along another corridor. Statues began to emerge from the walls at either side and behind them. All the doors up ahead disappeared, including where the corridor came to an end.
“No fair!” Cole yelled. This wasn’t a trial! This was certain death!
They reached the end of the hall and turned to face the oncoming statues. Instead of running, the statues walked briskly, packed close together, with more pouring from the walls.
“We need a wayport, now,” Cole said, feeding Violet all the power he could muster.
“Stop!” Violet shouted, blood leaking from one nostril. “I can’t!”
A brawny bald statue with a club in each hand led the attackers. Dozens followed—soldiers, dancers, barbarians, demons, fancy ladies, scholars, and cherubs marched together, weapons ready, expressions confident.
Jace raised his arm, and his golden rope unfurled toward the statues, but before it reached them, a huge hand sprouted from the wall and took hold of it. The rope writhed as Jace tried to wrest it free, but the stone hand held it firmly.
In desperation, Cole summoned his power for a final effort and reached out to the brawny statue at the head of the others. To his surprise, his power connected easily. With an effort of will, Cole blasted the statue into shrapnel that showered the statues in its wake.
The statues all stopped.
Reaching out, Cole could feel all of them. It was like in the echolands. No, even easier than the echolands. He could connect with almost no effort.
Had he been able to do this all along?
Up until now, in the physical world, he had only managed to connect to the power inside other people and to the power within shaped artifacts. He had not tried to connect to anything physical since arriving at the sky castle. He had assumed that he couldn’t do it.
He had been wrong.
The mass of statues rushed forward in a desperate charge.
With a growl, Cole threw everything he had at them, and the first couple dozen statues exploded down the corridor in a hail of shattered stone. The surviving statues farther back kept coming, and Cole reached out, feeling them with his power, and then hurling them violently away.
The walls of the hallway began to constrict, closing in, the ceiling descending, the floor elevating. Cole felt the walls, ceiling, and floor with his power and shoved them away, finding them easily malleable. He quickly increased the size of the corridor threefold. The remaining statues melted into the floor and walls.
The corridor became empty. The castle was still.
Jace stared at Cole in amazement.
“Who are you?” Violet asked in an awed tone.
“My power works here like it did in the echolands,” Cole said. “I didn’t know until I tried in desperation.”
A statue emerged from the end of the corridor. Cole reached into it with his power and then paused. The statue carried no weapon. And was smiling.
And looked exactly like Dandalus.
CHAPTER
9
TREASURE
The statue spoke with a smaller version of the voice that had issued from the castle. “Well done. The defenses have disengaged. You’re safe now.”
“Dandalus?” Cole asked.
“
A simplified version of Dandalus, yes, with some specific information. Since you survived, I presume you are Cole Randolph?”
“I am,” Cole said.
“I recognize you. From the echolands, the echo of Dandalus created this castle to send you a message. The message is meant only for you, Cole, so Dandalus created defenses that should be able to vanquish any intruder, but that you could easily overcome.”
“Easy once I knew how my power worked here,” Cole said.
“Was it a challenge?” the statue asked. “This castle was specifically customized to accommodate your abilities.”
“Did you miss the falling balconies?” Jace asked with a dark chuckle. “And the horde of statues?”
“Two artificial consciousnesses abide here. One controls the defenses. The other is me. The defenses did not give me access to you until I emerged from the wall.”
“I’m glad we found you,” Cole said.
“Too bad for the scout who came before us,” Jace murmured.
“There is one other living person inside the castle,” the statue said. “Could this be your scout? The defenses only kill as a final resort. The primary directive is to capture. The castle is designed to prevent escape. Of course, anyone captured would die with the castle when it enters the Eastern Cloudwall and is unmade.”
“The scout is alive?” Cole asked.
“We have a single young human in one of the holding cells. I can take you to him now or after our conversation.”
“How about the information first?” Cole prompted.
“The echo of Dandalus became concerned when he realized Ramarro was sent to Creon,” the statue said. “There are certain secrets he withheld from the artificial construct of himself residing in the Founding Stone. And many subtle nuances he worried the construct would not understand. One of these secrets is that through their skills in manipulating time, the Grand Shapers of Creon learned the key to everlasting life as long as they never leave Creon.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Violet said. “None confirmed. Wait, we’ve had many different Grand Shapers in Creon. If they can live forever, why would we need more than one?”