Kingdom Keepers VI (9781423179214)

by Pearson, Ridley

  Finn Whitman, defeating a giant.

  The beast threw an elbow of his own. Finn hit the wall so hard, he couldn’t see. The spider tried to escape. Finn touched its silk to the stone and hurried deeper down the tunnel. Another hit like that would be his last.

  This tunnel was narrow and low-ceilinged.

  Finn put some distance between him and Chernabog, but clawing and scratching sounds told him the beast was moving.

  With each lunge forward, Chernabog’s back worked against the ceiling stones, unsettling them. More sand and dirt rained down, clouding the air.

  Chernabog’s growls grew increasingly strained and vicious. Finn touched another spot of spider thread to the wall, wondering if he’d be alive to follow it out.

  He entered a wide but low chamber off which ran three additional tunnels—each in the center of a wall, just like the one through which he’d come.

  The chamber’s floor was sticky with mud.

  Chernabog approached.

  Finn froze. Which tunnel?

  He chose the middle, touching the spider silk to the stone.

  In the dark, he ran face first into a wall. Trapped.

  A dead end tunnel about ten feet long. If Chernabog pinned him here, he’d be torn limb from limb and eaten.

  Chernabog burst into the chamber, swinging his clublike mitts.

  The chamber offered him more room than a dead end. Finn charged out to face the beast. Needing both hands, he dropped the spider. It scurried away. Finn felt a sharp pang of loss.

  How many times had he crushed a spider? How could he suddenly miss one?

  Chernabog faced him, panting, lips still stained with Dillard’s blood.

  He swiped.

  Finn ducked. He spotted the knife protruding from the beast’s leg. Lunged for it.

  Chernabog caught him on the side of the head. Finn saw stars. Staggering to the side, he planted his hand into the gooey mud. Another blow. Finn collided with the wall, the wind knocked out of him. A tunnel entrance to his right offered escape, but Chernabog maneuvered to block it and the others. The beast cocked its head, seemed to be considering whether to end Finn or toy with him for a while.

  Somewhere inside, Finn knew he still had untapped strength. His head spinning, his chest aflame, he lacked the will to find it. In the battle of the boy against the beast, the beast had won. Finn hung his head.

  Chernabog’s hoof moved and crushed the spider. His spider.

  Killed so easily.

  Like Dillard.

  It came from somewhere deep inside, like lava to a volcano, venom to the snake. His muscles swelled, his mind knotted. Finn charged. He hit the beast in the gut, drew the knife from its thigh and heaved it over his head. As Chernabog bent forward from the pain, the knife entered his chest. The beast roared so loudly, Finn’s ears rang.

  This time Chernabog yanked the weapon out and threw it across the chamber where it shattered against a wall. Finn ducked instinctively from the flying pieces.

  Wild with rage, the beast tried to force itself to standing.

  At that moment, the roof caved in, unleashing a torrent of water. Chernabog slashed at the flow, not understanding it. In lashing out at the ceiling, he further ruptured the precarious seam between stones. Water gushed down, filling the chamber. Finn floated off his feet, slapping the surface to remain buoyant. He spun in the water. Which way was out? All four walls, all four tunnel entrances looked identical. He tried to recall Chernabog’s movements. Hadn’t he crossed the chamber diagonally? Was that where he stood now, fighting against a fallen rock that was pinning him?

  Only one tunnel led out to the jungle.

  Finn treaded water frantically. The pinned beast heaved. More water gushed down—a river now—but Chernabog had freed himself.

  Finn had to pick a tunnel; there was no time.

  Then he spotted it: the water was quiet at the mouth of two of the tunnel entrances—because they were dead ends. Two others had water spilling into, and filling, the tunnels. One of these two he’d come through only moments before.

  He only had one chance. He guessed it was the tunnel immediately to his right, the one farthest from…

  Chernabog stood beneath the waterfall coming through the ceiling, reaching out and pulling at it as if it were fabric. He’s scared of water, Finn realized. The beast was fighting the water, screaming, thrusting his horns into the flow and swinging his great paws. He was consumed with fear.

  As the water rose, Finn swam underwater for the tunnel. Should Chernabog look over, he would fail to see which tunnel Finn chose.

  Echoing from behind him came the guttural, bubbling sounds of a monster near drowning.

  Finn hurt all over as he walked. He slipped and fell, stood again with great difficulty. The speed of the water rising lessened. Finally he was out of the water altogether.

  He combed the stone surface to his right, desperate to find the silk thread. Maybe the water had pushed wind ahead of it; maybe the absence of silk didn’t mean he was moving deeper into the tunnels. If he only had more light; it was dark as pitch in here. How was he supposed to see something thinner than a human hair?

  Finn thought back to DHI version 1.6, when he’d been able to briefly turn his human self into a hologram. That particular phenomenon had surprised even Wayne and the Imagineers. The upgrade to 2.0 had stripped him of that ability; again, no one understood why or how.

  With the water rising again at his ankles, with the sound of Chernabog thrashing in the flood, Finn came to a realization. The trigger for “all clear,” as they’d called the 1.6 phenomenon, was to lose your fear. Not hide your fear, not cover it up, but lose it. Completely.

  What if the ability had been within the 2.0 upgrade all along, but the rules about losing one’s fear had changed? Everything else in 2.0 was enhanced. Why not all clear as well?

  Losing one’s fear wasn’t enough. What was more than losing one’s fear?

  How could losing his fear be more than losing his fear completely?

  Chernabog roared. There was no doubt: he’d freed himself. And he was coming closer.

  “To resist her power is futile. With her you must lose yourself to win.” Wayne had said that before abruptly changing the subject.

  Not lose yourself, you idiot! Finn chastised himself. “Lose your self.”

  Your identity. Your ego. All sense of “you.” A deeper place than fear.

  He closed his eyes and blocked out all sound—only to realize that to block something out, he had to be something. If he was something, he was self. He tried to think of a physical description for “nothing.” His thought jumped from thing to another; but any thing was not nothing: no-thing. He had to imagine no-thing.

  Space. Black. Cold. Silent. No gravity. Finn put himself there: into space, consumed by its full emptiness. Its no-thingness.

  His head felt light; in fact, he didn’t have a head. Or arms. Or wet feet. He opened his eyes.

  He was glowing. Not like 1.6. No blue outline around his hologram, but a hologram just the same. And a hologram that emitted a faint amount of light—just enough to see a single bluish thread of spider silk stuck to the wall.

  * * *

  Willa looked up at the steep cave wall, and imagined easily how she’d climb up. The grips, the crux… The one sport where I top Charlene, she thought wryly.

  “Charlene, I’m going to hide up above. But for the record, I still say this plan sucks. You shouldn’t be going out there alone.”

  “Of course I should. I’m fast. Superfast, as a matter of fact. You think those middle-aged freaks can possibly catch me?”

  “Tia Dalma swapped herself with Dillard, you twit! We don’t know what they’re going to do next!”

  “I’d love to debate you,” Charlene said. “Actually, not, because you’d win. But we don’t have all day. We need the van, and we need the boys in the back of the van. Do you have a plan? No? Because I do. So that’s our plan: mine.”

  “We just can’t me
ss up,” Willa said softly.

  Without meaning to, both girls looked back at Dillard’s body, his bloodless face haunted her. They had carefully propped him in the shadow of a column near the tunnel opening, making sure he couldn’t be seen.

  Shaking her head, Charlene stepped into the stone corner near the main tunnel entrance to the labyrinth and looked at Willa expectantly. Willa sighed.

  “The minute you’re out, I’ll climb up.”

  “Promise. Do as I told you,” Charlene hissed, and peered outside.

  Maleficent was squatting alongside the sitting Evil Queen, whose clothing was still smoking but no longer in flames.

  She couldn’t make her plan too obvious. The witches were far too smart and cunning for that. It had to be subtle, but it had to be quick: Willa wouldn’t be able to hold herself for long, no matter how good a climber she was.

  Charlene sprinted across the open terrace and hid behind a rock near the sacrificial table. Tia Dalma still lay on the ground. Wanting to win the attention of Maleficent and the Queen, Charlene ran a zigzag pattern toward the unconscious boys, made a point of appearing to reconsider, turned, and headed back to the tunnel.

  Maleficent threw a weak fireball and missed. Charlene entered the tunnel. Her fingertips found the crevices between the stones that Willa had pointed out.

  As the two witches entered the tunnel, Maleficent formed a fireball and rolled it ahead as a torch.

  “My Lord’s prints!” the Queen said, pointing to the cloven hoof marks heading to the right.

  Maleficent lit another fireball; held it at shoulder height.

  The ball nearly burned Charlene’s face. Both girls were now stuck to the ceiling, pressed between the walls, directly above the two Overtakers. The flames threatened to set Charlene’s dangling hair on fire.

  Maleficent hurled two fireballs. One into each tunnel.

  In the flickering light, Charlene saw Willa about to fall. Her hands were ashen white.

  Come on! Charlene willed the two witches. Move!

  As if hearing her, Maleficent and the Queen headed quickly down the tunnel to the right.

  There had been no hoofprints on the floor of the entrance; Charlene had scattered the dust so that Willa could be drawn to the prints and then wipe away her own, leaving only the hoof marks. Maleficent and the Queen were entering uncharted territory.

  The two Overtakers first threw shadows, then nothing at all. Gone.

  Willa lost her hold, rolled over in the air, and landed like a cat on all fours. Charlene released her hold and landed quietly.

  “We did it!” Willa choked out as a whisper.

  Charlene could not rid herself of the image of Dillard’s still body.

  “Dillard,” she said. “The boys! The van.”

  Together, the girls carried Dillard into fresh air, fighting back tears.

  * * *

  A shimmering silver thread of spider silk hung from the stone. For Finn, it looked like parade bunting, worthy of a brass band with trumpets and cymbals. He thought he might have kissed the spider if it had still been alive.

  Finn followed the silk. Used his newfound 2.0 all clear to light up his way when necessary, he took a corner to the right. It got easier to invoke each time he tried.

  At the end of a tunnel to his left—not the tunnel he was following—he saw yellow flickering light. Fire!

  Two figures walked past the tunnel’s end, visible for only seconds: Maleficent and the Queen.

  In a parallel tunnel.

  The firelight grew faint.

  Finn settled into all clear and reestablished he was following the silk road.

  To his left, more light! The two had turned around and were heading his way. Finn reacted too quickly, stepping back instead of forward. Trapping himself instead of freeing himself.

  No. He would not allow them to push him back the way he’d come. Finn lay flat on the stone and belly-crawled across the intersection. He was back on his feet and halfway up the tunnel when a giant shadow formed in front of him: his own. Maleficent had rolled a fireball as a searchlight.

  “You!” she said, in a voice shrill and brittle.

  Finn ran several more steps before sliding to a stop. He spun around.

  Me! he thought.

  How long was he going to run from Maleficent? How many years had it been? Cowering. Afraid. Always on the defensive.

  Now, Chernabog was on the run. And a friend was dead.

  Just the thought of Dillard made it hard for him to breathe.

  Finn could run, or he could stay and stop this woman and her kind from killing his friends.

  She threw a fireball. Halfway to him it slowed perceptibly. Finn dodged it effortlessly, marching toward her now, one confident step at a time.

  DIABLO FLEW DOWN the tomb tunnel, aimed squarely at Finn’s head. But in his current state, the bird of prey came at Finn more like a butterfly. Finn reached out, pinched its wing between his fingers, spun it like a stadium towel, and delivered it into the tunnel’s stone wall. Knocked unconscious, the raven fluttered to the floor.

  Maleficent wailed, as if some part of her had gone dead. Finn continued his march through the dying flames of several fireballs.

  I will not fear you. I will not be intimidated. Bring it on.

  Maleficent’s eyelids fluttered shut; her lips moved almost imperceptibly. Her neck began to elongate disgustingly; her arms, held out to her sides, thickened.

  In a normal state, Finn would not witness the stages of her transfiguration, only the change itself. But with time slowed to a crawl, the woman grew limbs, her chest and body widened and grew scales, her long chin became a dragon’s snout.

  Just as it had been too small for Chernabog, the stone tunnel was too small for a dragon—Maleficent’s anger had misguided her. She’d misjudged.

  A green dragon, on folded knees, plugged the tunnel. It scrambled forward, cried, twisted, but could not move.

  The Queen was hidden.

  The dragon opened its mouth.

  Finn’s slow-motion world allowed him to turn and dive for the fallen raven, Diablo. He held the bird out as a shield—a sacrifice—making sure the dragon could see the crow as he advanced one cautious step at a time.

  The dragon wiggled, could not move. It cocked its head, then roared so intensely the tunnel’s stones shook. Sand fell.

  But no fire from the dragon’s mouth. Maleficent would not burn her precious Diablo.

  As Finn continued his advance, Diablo in front, the dragon’s limbs began to shrink, its head changed shapes. Maleficent was returning to form.

  But in Finn’s time-shifted world, he charged, dropped Diablo at the dragon’s feet.

  He closed his eyes and willed away all thought, dropping into all clear.

  Her transformation continued.

  So did his.

  He’d never tried this feat, but there was always a first time. Dillard’s voice returned in his head. “If you don’t take a chance…”

  Finn spoke aloud. “You don’t have a chance.”

  Eyes shut, mind calm, he plunged his hologram hand through the transfiguring flesh at the base of the dragon’s neck. His eyes popped wide open, and he felt his “self”—he felt Dillard’s self.

  He lost his DHI, his arm and hand solid inside Maleficent.

  The dragon wailed, a shrill, deathly cry. Flames rolled down the tunnel ceiling from a mouth half-human, half-dragon.

  Finn pulled with all his strength, creating a fist-size wound.

  The fire abruptly stopped.

  He stepped back as this creature—half–woman fairy, half–green dragon—curled in on itself, blood flowing in great quantities from its neck.

  As the dragon-woman’s eyes began to pale in the dwindling firelight, Finn remembered the same light leaving Dillard’s eyes. He cried out in agonized victory, turned and walked away as Maleficent choked and coughed wetly, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come.

  The Evil Queen was a speck of dark, fl
eeing him, into the tunnel, away from any hope of finding the entrance.

  Finn found his silver silk adhered to the wall. He collected it so that others could not follow.

  Home…he thought.

  A STONE-FACED FINN drove the white van, careful to obey the speed limit in case there were any police patrolling the Mexican back country. They had covered Dillard’s face with a rag, unable to look at him. Maybeck’s and Philby’s sleeping bodies were stretched out, the girls on either side of them. Willa was crying.

  Tia Dalma was gagged and blindfolded, both wrists and ankles bound tightly. It had taken three of them to lift her into the back of the vehicle.

  Charlene looked ready to choke the witch doctor. They’d covered her head with Dillard’s bloody shirt so they didn’t have to look at her either, and so she couldn’t aim a spell at them.

  “Don’t do it, Charlie,” Finn said. “She’s for me.”

  “What are we going to do?” Willa sobbed. “It’s like the Syndrome. You get that, don’t you? Both Philby and Maybeck are under a spell! They’re…gone.”

  “Dillard’s gone,” Finn said in a brutal monotone. “Philby and Maybeck are still breathing. They can still be saved.”

  “We’ll get them onto the ship,” Charlene said. “We’ll figure something out. Maybe Wayne can help. The Imagineers?”

  Finn started to speak, but at the mention of Wayne his voice broke. He shifted in the seat and was poked by something in his pocket. He reached in and came out with a piece of the broken knife blade that Chernabog had shattered. It had found its way into his pocket as he’d ducked from it. He could suddenly feel the knife sinking into Dillard, the knife he’d held. He stopped the van, rolled down the window and threw up out the window. His hand was back on the gearshift when Willa called out.

  “Wait!”

  Finn couldn’t think, he couldn’t feel. He wanted to blame it on going all clear so often in the tunnels. He knew better. He pocketed the chip of the blade.