Keys to the Demon Prison

by Brandon Mull

  Chapter 1 A Dying Wish

  Seth knew he should not be here. His grandparents would be furious if they found out. The dismal cave smelled more rancid than ever, like a nauseating feast of spoiled meat and fruit. Almost steamy with humidity, the wet air forced him not only to smell but also to taste the putrid sweetness. Every inhalation made him want to retch.

  Graulas lay on his side, chest swelling and shrinking with labored, hitching breaths. His infected face rested against the rocky floor, inflamed flesh flattened in a sticky mass. Although the demon's wrinkly eyelids were shut, he twitched and grunted as Seth drew near. Groaning and coughing, the bulky demon peeled his face away from the floor, one curled ram horn scraping the ground. The demon did not fully arise, but managed to prop himself up on one elbow. One eye opened a fraction. The other was fused shut by congealed goo.

  "Seth," Graulas rasped, his formerly rumbling voice weak and tired.

  "I came," Seth acknowledged. "You said it was urgent. " The heavy head nodded slightly. "I . . . am . . . dying," he managed.

  The ancient demon had been diseased and dying since Seth had first met him. "Worse than ever?"

  The demon wheezed and coughed, a cloud of dust rising from his lumpy frame. After spitting out a thick wad of phlegm, he spoke again, his voice little more than a whisper. "After . . . long years . . . of dwindling . . . my final days . . . have arrived. "

  Seth was unsure what to say. Graulas had never tried to hide his nefarious past. Most good people would be relieved to hear of his demise. But the demon had taken a liking to Seth. After becoming intrigued by Seth's unusual exploits and successes, Graulas had helped him figure out how to stop the shadow plague, and had further assisted him in learning to use his newfound abilities as a shadow charmer. Whatever crimes Graulas may have committed in the past, the moribund demon had always treated Seth well.

  "I'm sorry," Seth said, mildly surprised to find he really meant it.

  The demon trembled, then his elbow collapsed and he flopped flat against the ground. His eye closed. "The pain," he moaned softly. "Exquisite pain. My kind . . . dies . . . so very slowly. I thought . . . I had sampled . . . every possible agony. But now, it burrows. . . twists. . . gnaws. . . expands. Deep inside. Relentless. Consuming. Before I can master it . . . the pain increases. . . to new plateaus of anguish. "

  "Can I help?" Seth asked, doubting whether anything from the medicine cabinet would do the trick.

  The demon snorted. "Not likely," he panted. "I understand . . . you will leave tomorrow. "

  "How did you know that?" His mission the next day was supposedly a secret.

  "Confide . . . no plans . . . to Newel and Doren. "

  Seth had not provided the satyrs with details. He had just told them he would be leaving Fablehaven for a time. He had been at the preserve for more than three months, ever since he and the others had returned from Wyrmroost. He had enjoyed several adventures with Newel and Doren in the interim, and felt he owed them a good-bye. Grandpa would only let them discuss the mission in his office with spells to help prevent spying, so Seth had shared no specifics, but he probably should not have said anything at all to the satyrs. "I didn't give them details," he told Graulas.

  "No . . . but I heard them mention your departure . . . as they moved about the woods. Although . . . I can't see into your house . . . I can deduce . . . you seek another artifact. Only such . . . a mission . . . would prompt Stan to risk . . . your safety. "

  "I can't really talk about it," Seth apologized.

  Graulas coughed wetly. "The details are unimportant. If I heard and guessed . . . others may have heard. Though I cannot. . . see . . . beyond the preserve . . . I can sense much outside attention focused here. Mighty wills straining to spy. Be on your guard. "

  "I'll be careful," Seth promised. "Is that why you called me here? To warn me?"

  One eye cracked open and a faint smile touched the demon's desiccated lips. "Nothing so . . . altruistic. I am soliciting a favor. "

  "What?"

  "I may . . . expire . . . before you return. Which would render my wishes . . . irrelevant. After all this time . . . my days are truly numbered. Seth . . . not only . . . my physical pain . . . troubles me. I am afraid to die. "

  "Me too. "

  Graulas grimaced. "You do not understand. Compared to me . . . you have little to fear. "

  Seth scrunched his brow. "You mean because you were bad?"

  "If I could . . . evaporate . . . into nothing . . . I would welcome death. But this is not the case. There are other spheres awaiting us, Seth. The place prepared for my kind . . . when we exit this life . . . is not pleasant. Which is partly why demons cling to this life for as long as we can. After how I lived . . . for thousands of years . . . I will have to pay a steep price. "

  "But you're not the person you were," Seth said. "You've helped me a lot! I'm sure that will count for something. "

  Graulas huffed and coughed differently than he had before. It almost sounded like a bitter chuckle. "I meddled with your dilemmas . . . from my deathbed . . . to amuse

  myself. Such trivialities will do little to offset centuries of deliberate evil. I have not changed, Seth. I am merely powerless. I have no drive left. As much pain as I am now enduring, I fear that the afterlife . . . will hold far greater agonies. "

  "So what can I do?" Seth wondered.

  "One thing only," Graulas growled through clenched lips. His eye squinted shut and his fists tightened. Seth heard teeth grinding. The demon's breath came in sharp, ragged bursts. "One moment," he managed, trembling. Creamy tears oozed from his eyes.

  Seth turned away. It was too much to watch. He had never imagined such misery. He wanted to run from the cave and never return.

  "One moment," Graulas gasped again. After a few grunts and moans, he began to breathe more deeply. "You can do one thing for me. "

  "Tell me," Seth said.

  "I do not know the purpose of your mission . . . but should you recover the Sands of Sanctity . . . that artifact could greatly alleviate my suffering. "

  "But you're so diseased. Wouldn't it kill you?"

  "You're thinking of. . . the unicorn horn. The horn purifies . . . and yes . . . its touch would slay me. But the Sands heal. They wouldn't just burn away my impurities. The Sands would cure my maladies and help my body survive the process. I would still be dying of old age, but the pain would be lessened, and the healing might even buy me a little more time. Forgive me, Seth. I would not ask . . . were I not desperate. "

  Seth stared at the pathetic ruin the demon's body had become. "The Sphinx has the Sands," he said gently.

  "I know," Graulas whispered. "Even the thought. . . that there is some small chance . . . gives me something to dwell upon . . . besides. . . besides. . . "

  "I understand," Seth said.

  "I have nothing else to hope for. "

  "Of course we're trying to get the Sands back," Seth soothed. "I can't say this mission will do that, but of course we hope to recover all of the artifacts. If we can get the Sands of Sanctity, I'll bring the artifact here and heal you. I promise. Okay?"

  Discolored tears gushed from the eyes of the demon. He turned his face away. "Fair enough. You have . . . my thanks . . . Seth Sorenson. Farewell. "

  "Is there anything else I can--"

  "Go. You can do nothing more. I would rather not. . . be seen . . . like this. "

  "Okay. Hang in there. "

  Flashlight in hand, Seth exited the cave, relieved to leave behind the humid stench a
nd the naked agony.

  Chapter 2 Obsidian Waste

  Kendra reclined in the comfy seat and tried to doze, but despite the hypnotically steady whine of the private jet's engines, she could not calm her mind. A string of flights had taken her, Tanu, and Seth from New York to London, then to Singapore, and finally to Perth, the capital of Western Australia, where they had boarded the private jet they currently occupied. At the various airports along the way, Tanu had them ducking into bathrooms to change outfits and taking complicated routes through the terminals. They traveled under assumed names using false identification, all in the hope of avoiding the notice of their enemies in the Society of the Evening Star.

  At Perth they had met up with Trask, Mara, Elise, and a guy named Vincent. Trask sat across the aisle from Kendra, filing his nails, his dark scalp gleaming. She was glad he was leading the mission. Her past experiences with him had shown that he remained calm under duress, and he was widely considered the most seasoned field operative among the Knights of the Dawn.

  Directly in front of Kendra, Tanu leaned against a window, snoring gently. The Samoan potion master had spent more time asleep than awake on their previous flights. Despite his bulk, he had a knack for dozing on planes. Kendra wished she had asked him for a concoction to help her relax.

  Elise reclined behind Kendra, listening to music on a pair of noise-canceling headphones. She had new red streaks in her hair and wore heavier makeup than when she had helped Warren guard Seth and Kendra back in December. Eyes closed, she softly tapped her fingers against her thighs to the beat.

  At the front of the cabin, Mara gazed out the window. A tall, athletic woman with dramatic cheekbones, Mara hadn't been talkative even before the Lost Mesa preserve fell and her mother was killed. Since greeting them at the airport in Perth, the Native American seemed quieter than ever.

  Vincent, the only member of the party Kendra had not met previously, sat across from Mara. A small man of Filipino descent, he smiled a lot and had a faint accent. Grandpa had explained that Vincent had been included on the mission because of his familiarity with the Obsidian Waste preserve.

  Although she could not see him, Kendra knew that Seth was up in the cockpit with Aaron Stone, the same man who had piloted their helicopter when they went to Wyrmroost. Had that really been only three months ago? It felt like a lifetime.

  She wished Warren were here with them. It felt wrong to go adventuring without him. He had been with her at the inverted tower at Fablehaven, as well as Lost Mesa and Wyrmroost. But now he was part of the reason this expedition was so urgent. At Wyrmroost, Warren had been trapped inside a magical chamber. The entrance to the room looked like a regular knapsack, but inside the unassuming mouth of the bag a series of rungs led down into a spacious storeroom heaped with junk and provisions. After Gavin had revealed himself as Navarog, he had destroyed the knapsack, stranding Warren inside the storage room along with a small hermit troll named Bubda.

  The room had been well stocked with food and water, but any supply was finite, and now, after three months, Grandpa and the others had estimated that Warren would be nearly out of rations. Without prompt intervention, starvation would claim him.

  Not long after Kendra had returned to Fablehaven from Wyrmroost, Coulter Dixon had embarked on a campaign to discover how the Translocator functioned. The adventure at Wyrmroost had provided them with the key to the vault at Obsidian Waste, but obtaining the Translocator would be much more useful if they knew how it exerted power over space. Otherwise, it might end up like the Chronometer, a powerful artifact that they had little idea how to operate.

  After exploiting his best contacts and hunches, the veteran relic hunter had returned with no new information. Kendra had never seen Coulter looking so old and defeated. Others kept searching for operational guidelines, but a couple of weeks ago, it was Vanessa who finally reported success. She had been mentally traveling out of Fablehaven into the sleeping minds of people she had bitten in the past. Her primary focus had been trying to figure out where Kendra's parents had been taken, but while working with one of her contacts inside the Society of the Evening Star, the narcoblix had uncovered long-guarded information about operating the Translocator. Once Coulter had verified that the intelligence seemed authentic, the Knights had started planning this mission, in the hope that the Translocator could help them rescue Warren and gain a new advantage over the Society.

  Kendra also quietly hoped that an artifact as powerful as the Translocator might help in the search for her mother and father. Maria and Scott Sorenson had known nothing about disguised magical creatures existing in the real world. And yet, despite their lack of involvement in the affairs surrounding Fablehaven, contrary to all precedent, they had been abducted. Stranger still, there had been no contact from the Society about terms for their release. After Wyrmroost, the Sphinx and the Society had seemed to disappear.

  Kendra tried not to dwell on her parents. The thought of them made her ache. Scott and Maria both still believed she was dead. They had held a funeral and buried a duplicate Kendra and then had been abducted before the record could be set straight. A miserable emptiness overcame Kendra whenever she remembered that her parents believed their daughter to be dead and buried. All of that futile grief! Now that her parents were prisoners, would they ever learn the truth?

  To make matters worse, her parents had been taken through no fault of their own. They had never even heard of the Society of the Evening Star. Kendra, Seth, and maybe Grandma and Grandpa Sorenson were the ones to blame. The abduction had to be in retaliation for Navarog's failure at Wyrmroost. The thought of her beloved parents paying for her decisions made Kendra want to scream her way to insanity.

  To combat the grief, Kendra usually let it flare into hatred, a fiery coal bed of wrath that grew hotter over time, fueled by fear and fanned by guilt. Almost all of that hate was directed toward a single individual: the Sphinx.

  It was the Sphinx who had waged war on the preserves for magical creatures, trying to steal the five secret artifacts that together could open the demon prison Zzyzx. It was the Sphinx who had introduced her to Gavin, a cute guy and a good friend who had turned out to be a scheming, demonic dragon. It was the Sphinx who had initiated the shadow plague, which had led to the death of Lena. It was the Sphinx who had kidnapped her and forced Kendra to use the Oculus, an artifact with amazing powers of sight that had almost devoured her mind. And it was the Sphinx who was still out there, unpunished, with her parents under his control, plotting further mischief that could lead to the opening of Zzyzx and the end of the world.