by Tony Abbott
We stopped, turned, and saw a tiny viper slithering calmly through the thorns. He raised his tiny head.
Ssss …
Sydney laughed. “Seriously? That’s Thornviper? This little guy is one of the seven great monsters of Babylon? An earthworm could take him —”
It was a little funny. Until it wasn’t.
Ssss … came a sound from our right. A second tiny viper.
“Twins?” said Jon.
Then — ssss — we saw another one. Then another, and the nest of thorns was suddenly crawling with the little things.
“Okay,” said Sydney, “I get it, there are lots of them, but they’re still really small —”
Then we watched as all the tiny vipers slithered together and twisted and coiled around in a mess of heads and tails.
“What’s happening?” said Dana.
“I think we’re seeing what happens just before we die,” said Jon, covering his eyes. “Oh, no, no …”
Before we knew it, the little vipers had formed one single gargantuan viper.
“So that’s Thornviper,” said Sydney.
The monster reared his humongous head up to the ceiling. His fangs were as long as sabers, and they dripped goopy liquid to the floor. A tongue as long as a hallway carpet uncoiled from his mouth and snapped like a whip.
SSSSSSS!
The sound was so high-pitched I was afraid my eardrums would burst. Then a blast of flaming thorns from the creature’s mouth almost incinerated us. Luckily, a weak bolt from Dana’s glove was just enough to blow the flames away.
Thornviper reared again.
“Owen!” cried Dana, crouching behind Sydney and holding her wrist. “I can’t —”
Oooong! The string that had worked on the level below did nothing here. In fact, none of the strings did. Thornviper rose to strike again and hissed his high-pitched whine.
SSSSS!
I twisted the tuner on the highest string to try to match the note, and the daggers of pain that shot through my eyeballs nearly made me black out.
EEEENG!
Thornviper howled in pain. All at once, a flicker, a spark — and the thorns blew up into a fire.
“Climb the vine!” cried Sydney, pulling Dana and Jon with her. “Hurry!”
We climbed the thorn vine, not caring how much it cut our fingers. As soon as we reached the top, the ceiling spiraled open. We scrambled through the opening as Thornviper wailed in his nest of burning thorns.
The floor closed beneath our feet.
We’d made it to the third level.
AS CRAZY AND NOISY AND DANGEROUS AS THE ROOM below had been, the third level of the tower was as silent as a tomb.
Which didn’t make me feel any better.
We peered around and found ourselves in the center of a large ring of ascending stone benches.
“This kind of reminds me of a gladiator arena,” said Dana.
“Didn’t people die in those?” asked Jon.
“Only the ones who didn’t win,” said Dana.
Jon shook his head. “Funny. Really.”
Trying to focus my throbbing eyes, I scanned the room from side to side. The ring of bleachers around us was unbroken except in two places. A long set of steps rose from ground level to the ceiling, where a low arch led, I guessed, to the next level. Next to the bottom of the stairs was a tall opening leading somewhere dark and creepy. I didn’t want to know any more about that.
“So,” Sydney muttered, “I guess we get up those stairs and out of here fast.”
“I really like the second part of that plan,” said Jon.
Before we could move, the dark opening echoed with the sound of feet, and out came an endless column of lion-headed warriors. They growled loudly, but didn’t move toward us. They simply tramped up the bleachers, sat down, and began to chant.
It was what they chanted that was the problem.
“Furnace! Furnace!”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jon whispered.
Moments later, a large, human shape moved slowly out of the archway, and the crowd cheered louder. “FURNACE!”
“Oh, I’m going to be sick,” said Dana.
We’d found our monster.
“Furnace” was eight feet of blackened metal. His legs and arms were thick, pistonlike cylinders, and his chest was as big as a tin drum. His head was a barrel with a hatch for a mouth and hot coals flaming inside. Furnace eyed us with large glowing eyes, and we backed up.
“Is he some kind of prehistoric robot?” asked Sydney, her voice shaking.
Furnace blew one big flame from his metal jaws, and the lion-headed spectators fell silent. In the sudden quiet, we heard Loki’s muffled cries and Thornviper hissing below our feet. The Norse god wasn’t far behind us.
“Come to me!” Furnace spat at us from his fiery jaws, coals spraying across the floor.
“We don’t want to,” said Jon, stepping quickly behind me.
Furnace laughed hoarsely, spit more flames, and stomped toward us. The roar from the lion-headed crowd shook the walls.
I plucked the lyre’s strings frantically while we backed away from the metal monster, but none of them did anything. When I saw Dana aiming her glove, I said, “No, I’ll —”
Bam! She shot a bolt from her hand, then fell to her knees with a groan, but when her bolt struck Furnace — blang! — he rang like a bell. The sound echoed from wall to wall, and the lyre trembled in my hands.
“That’s it!” I said. I loosened one of the lyre’s strings to match the sound.
When the note rang out, Furnace halted in mid-belch and wobbled on his canister feet.
“Run up the stairs!” shouted Dana.
As we rushed straight for the stairs, a wave of sand blew up from the floor and sprayed us. Furnace turned his head, and there was Loki, the runes glowing on his chest.
“Two beasts down, five more to go!” Loki sneered. “Fenrir and the other beasts are waiting for you, Furnace. Come, be my ally. Join my war.”
“Ally?” spat the metal man. “Only the holder of the Tablets commands me. Otherwise, I am the enemy of all who try to ascend the tower.”
We edged backward toward the stairs.
“You are the enemy of Kingu, not of me,” said Loki, the rune on his breastplate glowing more brightly. “After today, Kingu will no longer concern you. I am your master now.”
The light from Loki’s rune flooded the metal man.
“I told you,” said Sydney. “Loki is betraying Kingu, just like I said.”
“Come on!” Dana grabbed my arm, and I pulled Sydney away.
With no time to lose, we raced up the stairs to the opening. When I glanced back, I saw Furnace’s massive arms drop to his sides. He bowed his colossal head. Loki hung a rune necklace on it.
“The rune controls you until I hold the Tablets,” Loki said to Furnace. “Go to Fenrir and your fellow beasts below. Go!”
Furnace bowed once more, and the opening closed behind us.
“Level four,” Dana said, looking around at a room carved entirely of marble. In the center of the room stood a tall, carved arch that formed the entrance to a long tunnel. Beyond the end of the tunnel we spied a ramp that ended in an opening to the floor above.
“The quickest way to the ramp is straight through the tunnel,” said Jon. “I vote for the quickest way.”
“Agreed,” said Sydney.
As our eyes adjusted to the pale light, we saw columns on either side, and pedestals, and shelves along the walls that held what appeared to be the tattered remains of paper scrolls. We also saw loose papers scattered on the tunnel’s floor.
“It looks like this place was once a library,” I said.
“It does,” Dana whispered. Then she stopped short of entering the tunnel. “Do you remember my parents’ library? How one book was missing?”
We all nodded. The Runsons’ library was where we’d first met Fenrir. We had barely escaped, but not before noticing a gap in the shelves
where one book was gone.
“I think I know which book it is,” Dana went on as we once more headed toward the arch. “It had a cover dotted with clear stones. It was about the Crystal Rune.”
“Then your parents probably took it with them to Iceland,” Sydney said.
Dana shook her head slowly. “They burned the book. I remember that.”
“Burned it?” said Jon. “Why would they burn a book? They love books.”
“They burned it so no one else would ever read it,” Dana said. “That’s why Fenrir couldn’t find it at my house, and why Loki sent the Draugs after my parents. I remember my parents reading it to me when I was young.” Her eyes darkened. “Not exactly bedtime reading.”
“Do you remember any of the book?” asked Syd.
“A few words and phrases,” Dana said. “Not much.”
“Dana, your parents are smart,” I said. “If they’re the only ones who know where the rune is, they’ll find it and keep it from Loki. Don’t worry. You’ll see them soon.”
I had no idea what I was saying, but I hoped it sounded all right to Dana. I guess it did. She smiled a little.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s keep going.”
Keeping our eyes squarely on the ramp beyond the tunnel, we made our way quietly to the large marble arch. Jutting down from the top of the arch were the remains of columns that had somehow been broken. On the floor just below stood the bottom pieces of those same columns, also broken. We slipped between the columns into the tunnel.
“Weird how the walls are curved here,” said Jon as we stepped deeper into the passage. “And …” he said, reaching out with his fingers, “… a little slimy.”
Whooosh! Air blew over us from the dark distance, stirring the papers on the floor. It was foul, heavy, and stale. It smelled like old food. Really old food. Another rush of air, and the walls around us rippled. Then came something that sounded like a … growl.
When the tunnel shut in front of us I think we all figured it out.
“This is Mad Dog!” Jon yelled. “We’re inside Mad Dog! Get out of here!”
The instant we turned around, the opening we’d come through began to close up, too, and the broken columns at the top lowered toward the broken columns on the floor. Like teeth.
We dived through the marble jaws just before they clamped shut. When they did, the arch and the tunnel shook violently, chunks of stone crashed to the floor, and there stood an enormous dog made of marble.
Mad Dog.
“Get past him and up that ramp!” I yelled.
We raced right past his humongous head, but the marble dog was as quick as he was enormous. He twisted back and swiped at us with a massive paw. His claws caught a handful of the shelves on the wall and tore them away. Then he opened his jaws wide, and flames shot out.
We all fell flat on the ramp, and the whole room went crimson with fire. The walls shuddered with a sound like a hammer striking stone.
And the lyre’s fourth string rang.
“Thank you!” I yelled, plucking that string over and over. Mad Dog howled as if someone had smashed his big stone paw.
“This way!” Sydney cried, and we dashed up the ramp and ran as fast as we could, leaping into the darkness of the fifth level. Mad Dog charged at us one last time, but the opening to the fifth level closed, and we were alone.
A sliver of pale light shone from ceiling to floor in the distance. “Moonlight,” Jon said. “That must be the exit. We’re near the top of the tower.”
Except that getting there wasn’t going to be easy. Between us and the shaft of light was a swamp, burning with the same green flames we had seen from Fire Serpent.
“We’ll have to pick our way across the swamp to get there,” said Dana, scanning the tiny islands of land that dotted the swamp and stretching her glove to me. “Hold hands so no one falls in.”
I took her hand. It was odd, burning and freezing at the same time. Even touching the glove for a short time made my fingers ache. I could only imagine how Dana felt.
We hopped from island to island, and the flames licked at our feet, hissing at an eerie pitch. Was that the lyre’s note? It was weird how the levels of the tower seemed to be “tuned.” That had to mean something, but I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it — because just then Fire Serpent rose out of the swamp behind us, rearing his fat head and snorting fire from his snout.
Jon groaned. “Here we go again. Everybody down!”
We flattened to the ground, and a blast of green flame blew over us, igniting the swamp grass. At the same time, a bolt of silver light struck the water next to us.
“Loki’s back, too!” Sydney shouted.
And there he was, his face a storm of anger. Loki charged at us across the swamp. “You cannot stop me! The monsters will be mine! But I will take a moment to destroy you first —”
Loki threw a ball of flame at Dana, which she deflected at the last moment with a pretty weak stream of light from her glove. Loki’s blast fizzled near the serpent’s knobby tail. The beast spun around to the Norse god.
“You’ll be bound to me soon enough, snake. In the meantime —” Loki touched the rune on his breastplate, and silver light enveloped the beast.
“Run! Over here!” growled a distant voice. I looked up to see a familiar face, standing in the distant shaft of moonlight.
“Panu?” said Jon. “You did come back!”
“I said I would. Now come on!” he called. “This way to the next level!”
We jumped quickly from one island to the next, when I heard Loki laugh wickedly from behind us. “You won’t win this race! Serpent, stand aside! These four children are mine!”
Blam-blam-blam! Loki sprayed lightning bolts across the swamp. I hit the soggy ground, pulling Dana with me.
Ahead of us, Jon and Sydney reached Panu, and he lifted them through the opening to the next level with his strong arms. I pulled Dana, stumbling, with me. Her gloved hand was hanging at her side. The last blast had exhausted her completely.
I couldn’t get the pitch on the lyre right. The strings were tuned to the tower, not to Loki. It wasn’t working.
I couldn’t stop him.
Loki laughed coldly. “Say good-bye —”
But I had to try.
I pushed Dana toward Panu, swung around, and rushed Loki, swinging the lyre like an ax. Then a blast struck the side of my head, and I went down.
EXCEPT THAT THE BOLT OF SILVER LIGHT DIDN’T actually hit me. It flashed so close to my face that I thought I had died. Or gone blind. Or both.
But when I looked up, Loki was stunned, wobbling unsteadily. Dana was on her knees behind me, the armored glove on her hand smoking. “That was the last time!” she said. “I can’t do this anymore —”
“Then I will,” Loki said, collecting himself and striding toward us, his silver hand sparking wildly.
Not thinking, I jumped up and ran right at Loki. I swung the lyre at his glove just as it flashed.
THONK! The lyre struck him, and his blast went wild. A lyre string snapped back in my face, cutting my cheek. Dana jumped up, grabbed my shoulder, yanked me around, and pushed me toward the moonlight.
Fire Serpent was tired of waiting. He leaped across the swamp at us, shrieking wildly. That was the note. I hoped that the lyre string that had snapped wasn’t the one I needed now. It wasn’t. The note I struck quivered like an arrow striking its target.
EEEE! The serpent crashed into the swamp with a horrible screech, splashing flaming green water over Loki. Dana and I sloshed over to Panu, where Jon and Sydney tugged us up through the opening and outside on the sixth level of the tower.
This level was a thick jungle of vines and trees and gargantuan blossoming plants, shimmering dark green and silver in the moonlight.
I gulped in the hot night air, trying to catch my breath, feeling dizzy.
“The summit,” said Sydney, pointing beyond the highest trees to a narrow stone turret that rose high over every
thing like a factory smokestack.
“Do you want to rest?” asked Panu, his eyes wide with fear. We must have looked pretty bad. “You guys seem … well …”
Kaaaa! Birdman circled slowly over the trees, searching for us, his black eyes scanning the jungle for any sign of movement. We were in his territory now.
I climbed to my feet and peered down at the vast, dark desert below. I could hear sounds coming from the level beneath us — the blasts from Loki’s glove, the serpent screeching at the top of his lungs, the silence as Loki’s runes overwhelmed him.
I thought about how many good people were in danger because of Loki’s terrifying war — our families, our home, the whole world. And they didn’t even know it.
There was no time.
I turned back to face the others. “That was our rest. We have to get to the Tablets of Destiny before Loki wraps his evil hands around them. Now we climb.”
No one objected. They knew we had to keep going.
We tramped through the jungle until we came to a clearing that nearly surrounded the turret. Only a few scattered trees and tangled vines would cover us from above. When I saw Birdman dive to the clearing, rip up one small tree with his beak, and chew it into nothing, it was obvious that he’d made the clearing to keep anyone from reaching the summit.
“You realize that creepy bird will spot us the instant we leave the trees, right?” Sydney said. “We’re going to have to run really fast.”
Jon nodded quietly. “I don’t know about running, but I’ll try.” He turned to Dana. “Do you think you can?”
Her face was lined with pain, her arm hung limp at her side, the once-silver glove now gray and lifeless. But when she took a deep breath and said, “I’m ready,” I knew that Dana was a true hero, and I was so proud to be with her.
“Okay, then?” I said.
And just like that, we broke through the trees and out into the open, rushing, stumbling, and hurling ourselves across the clearing. Even though he was high in the sky, it took less than an instant for Birdman to spot us. With a mocking shriek and insane speed, he dived. As he came closer, I could see that his beak was two feet long from base to point and red as blood, streaked with dark ribbons of black.