by Brandon Mull
Seth got ready. He would run either to the Wizenstone or away from Celebrant if he started trying to tag them with his glove.
“I will count three, two, one, toss,” Celebrant said. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Kendra said.
“Three,” Celebrant said.
Seth clenched his fists and bent his knees slightly. A quick reaction could be the key to grabbing the Wizenstone.
“Two,” Celebrant said.
Seth glanced at Lomo, who stood ready as well.
“One,” Celebrant said. “Toss.”
Three arms swung forward, and three coins took flight, each plopping into the basin.
Banishment
Water stopped spouting into the fountain, and the liquid in the wide, circular basin grew dark and still. Surprisingly dark and suddenly still as glass. Kendra had positioned herself a quarter of the way around the fountain from Celebrant. Leaning over the water, she could see her reflection. She also saw the reflection of a dwarf. He looked to be in his autumn years, with playfully expressive features and a forked beard, reddish brown streaked with gray.
The compact man waved at her with just his fingers and spoke. “Hello.”
Kendra looked sideways to where he must be standing. After a moment looking around, she realized he was visible only in the water.
“This is a surprise,” the dwarf said, looking from Kendra to Celebrant to Obregon. “None of you three were present at the start of the contest.”
“Are you Humbuggle?” Kendra asked.
Looking bewildered, the dwarf patted his vest as if feeling his pockets. “I’m afraid so. And I should have a poem ready for the next phase of the challenge, but I have waited a very long time. You wouldn’t believe how long. Some people just can’t seem to collaborate.”
“What is the next phase?” Celebrant asked.
The dwarf wagged a finger at him. “This contestant is all business. Accustomed to command. You’re a participant like everyone else tonight.”
Celebrant sneered. “You have a poem?”
“I had a poem,” Humbuggle said. “A good one. And that is no small matter in English. But I’ve misplaced it.”
“Don’t you have it memorized?” Celebrant asked.
“I did last time I checked,” Humbuggle said. “But that was more than six hundred years ago.”
“Can you just tell us the rules?” Kendra said.
“I suppose,” Humbuggle said. “I could also eat plain oatmeal every day to stay alive. An explanation is more pleasant when it rhymes. And a tad more official.”
“Make up a rhyme?” Kendra proposed.
“I’m not speaking Silvian,” Humbuggle said. “This is English. I suppose I can give it a go.” He laced his fingers, cracked his knuckles, cleared his throat, and recited:
To tread where mystic waters roll
You must be one who paid the toll
Reclaim the token you have tossed
Or lose all hope to pay the cost
Then in the end if you reflect
The rod you surely shall detect
With pow’r to banish friend or foe
To realms above or depths below
“We’re looking for a rod?” Kendra asked.
“No more hints, young lady,” Humbuggle said. “That poem was already far too plain.” The dwarf clapped his hands and vanished.
Immediately the floor of the basin began to recede, sinking deeper and deeper, leaving behind one step at a time until a helix of stairs descended into darkness. As the water in the basin flowed down the newly forming stairway, the spouts began to gush again, keeping a steady stream of water tumbling down into the humid depths.
Celebrant glared at Kendra, pointing at her with his gloved hand. “If you want to survive this night, do not follow us.”
Celebrant entered the basin at the top step and began going down the stairway. Obregon followed. The footing looked treacherous, with water swirling around their shins, but they sloshed out of sight without falling.
Kendra turned to the others. “I have to go, don’t I?”
“Let me go first,” Lomo said, trying to step into the basin and getting thrust back roughly as an unseen barrier flashed.
“The poem warned that only those who threw coins could go down,” Lockland said.
“It’s me or nobody,” Kendra said. “We can’t let them get the rod. What if that means they will win the Wizenstone?”
“Don’t go without this,” Lockland said, removing his platinum glove. He set it on the ground and stepped away.
“Your glove?” Kendra asked.
“If you’re wearing it, Celebrant can’t turn you to gold,” Lockland said. “All our hopes are on you right now. Take it.”
Kendra crouched, picked up the glove, and put it on. Though it looked too big at first, the glove shrank to neatly fit her hand.
“Be careful what you touch with the glove,” Lockland reminded her. “It can take time to get used to the consequences of wearing it. Your own clothes are safe, though.”
“I can control the platinum statues?” Kendra asked.
“It’s easiest to instruct them if you’re touching them,” Lockland said. “But you can also send out commands mentally. I just have them trying to touch Obregon at the moment, since the glove makes Celebrant immune.”
“I don’t see them,” Seth said.
“They’re coming,” Lockland replied.
Kendra looked at the other statues in the courtyard. All were gradually moving toward them, so slowly that the motion was only just becoming noticeable from a distance. “They’re speeding up.”
“By the end of the night they will be dangerous,” Lockland said.
“I better hurry,” Kendra said, stepping over the side of the basin onto the top stair.
“Celebrant could try to take your glove,” Lockland said. “Don’t let them corner you. Touch Obregon if necessary.”
“Be sneaky,” Seth recommended. “They don’t need to know you’re behind them.”
Water splashed around her ankles, soaking her socks. The top step was not as wet as the others—water from only one spout of the fountain drained onto it. As she made her first full downward circle, all the spouts would contribute to the cascade.
Kendra stared at the water slurping downward. Was she crazy? If she slipped, the fall itself could be lethal. Let alone the pair of dragons in human form who wanted to turn her to gold, and probably a bunch of traps created by the dwarf.
“Wish me luck,” Kendra said.
“You can do it,” Seth assured her. “See you soon.”
Kendra looked at her brother. “I don’t have my fairykind powers. It looks so dark.”
“You should get going,” Lomo said. “You don’t want Celebrant and Obregon to get too far ahead.”
“Hopefully you’ll stumble across their dead bodies,” Seth said.
“A girl can dream,” Kendra replied, starting down the stairs. She kept a hand on the wall to help steady herself. The water gushing over the stone steps made the descent quite slippery. After a full downward circle, her friends passed out of view, and the darkness increased.
The misty air smelled of moss, stone, and water. The darkness increased the deeper she went, and the wall became mushy or slimy sometimes. The squishy textures made Kendra squeamish, but she was more scared of falling, so she kept her hand sliding across the unsettling surface.
Soon Kendra was descending in complete darkness, unseen water sluicing past her calves. She firmly planted each step before taking the next, winding down to unguessable depths. The water rushing ahead of her and behind her filled the stairway with white noise. The stone wall grew cooler, alternating between gooey, mossy, and slick.
After some time, faint blue radiance appeared up ahead. The light grew br
ighter as Kendra kept going. She found a glowing crystal anchored to the wall just beyond where the spiraling stairs finally ended in a pool. At the bottom of the pool, Kendra noticed the glint of a coin.
Wading into the pool brought the water just above her knees, but her pants were already drenched anyway from water splashing up while she descended the stairs. Kendra crouched and fished out the platinum coin. The poem had made it sound like she might need it, so she tucked it in her pocket. Perhaps the light source had been placed here to give her a fair chance to find it.
Water overflowing from the pool at the base of the stairs continued down a gently slanted corridor. Some distance down the hall, Kendra saw the blue radiance of another crystal. There was no sign of either Celebrant or Obregon. A hurried search of the pool revealed no more coins, so Kendra assumed they must have collected theirs. Had they missed hers, or had they been unable to claim it? Perhaps the rule of one coin per person remained in effect.
The corridor looked ancient, the eroding masonry glossy with dampness and slime. The hall was wider than the stairway had been, meaning the water was not as deep, but it still covered her ankles. Kendra crept forward, wondering how she would respond if Celebrant and Obregon attacked her.
The corridor ran long and straight, with blue crystals placed far enough apart to allow for extended shadowy stretches between them, although light ahead or behind never fully passed out of view. At length Kendra reached a place where the water flowed down a short flight of stairs into a black river.
Kendra paused at the top of those stairs. She could not see the far side of the river, but the water was clearly flowing left to right, with the water from the fountain serving only as a small tributary. Unlike the water on the stairs, the water of the river seemed black as ink and only barely reflected the light from the nearest crystal.
Beyond the bottom of the stairs, a few steps led up to a wooden quay projecting a short distance out into the river. A single raft awaited at the end of the quay, with a single cowled occupant, who stood facing away from Kendra.
Nothing about what she saw enticed her to approach.
But there was nowhere else to go unless she simply dove into the tenebrous water of the river. Or turned back.
Could the occupant of the raft be Celebrant or Obregon? Perhaps, if they had found a hooded robe. If not, where were they? Had there been other options earlier?
Kendra descended the last stairs, water sloshing around her, then waded over and climbed the steps to the quay. The rotted wood looked thin and splintery, with so many gaps it would be more like walking on shutters than on a solid surface. The wood crunched beneath her first step, and she even felt it sag slightly. If she broke through, she would end up in the black river. The sides of the quay seemed better reinforced than the center, so she moved along the right side, wood creaking with each step.
At the end of the quay, she reached the raft. The robed figure turned, revealing a skull inside the hood.
Kendra gasped and tried not to stumble into the river. At least the skeletal figure made no harsh movements. A hand made of bones reached out, fleshless palm upward. The figure held that pose.
Kendra pulled the coin from her pocket and placed it in the skeleton’s hand. The fingers closed and the figure stepped back, allowing Kendra access to the raft. Though wooden like the quay, the raft looked much sturdier. Kendra stepped aboard.
The robed skeleton gripped a pole leaning against the quay and pushed off. Slowly rotating, the raft drifted out onto the mysterious water. A jumbled mixture of faint whispers and sighs arose from the dark liquid, prompting Kendra to move to the center of the raft.
Though the skeleton dipped his pole into the water, Kendra did not think it looked like the pole was reaching the ground and pushing off, and the skeleton did not appear to put much real effort into the motion. Nevertheless, the raft traveled against the current at a slow, steady rate. The sound of the water splashing down the stairs to join the river gradually faded, leaving Kendra alone with the tangled susurrations of the black river.
As the darkness increased to impenetrable perfection, Kendra desperately missed her ability to see without light. What if the skeleton had set down the pole and was coming toward her, fleshless hands reaching? She would have no warning before those bony fingers closed around her neck.
Kendra tried not to fixate on the whispering water, but it was the only sound besides the gentle sloshing of the pole. She was glad that she could not make out individual words. The collective feel was unsavory.
A spectral light became visible up ahead, on the opposite side of the river from where she had embarked. They were still traveling upstream. In the ghostly light, Kendra saw two other rafts drawn up against a stone jetty. A skeletal boatman stood on each. She assumed this meant the dragons in human form had come this way ahead of her, but they were not within view.
The raft glided to a stop against the jetty. Kendra stepped off the raft and glanced back at the skeleton, who seemed indifferent to her. She walked across the jetty to the shore before looking back at the three rafts, wondering if the coin provided a round-trip journey or if she might have to find another way to pay in order to return.
A path led from the jetty to an archway. Kendra could not discern where the light was originating—it seemed to somehow distill out of the air without a source, which perhaps was what made it feel ghostly.
The shore beside the dark river extended only a short distance in either direction. To follow the river would force her either to swim or to climb rock walls. The archway seemed the obvious destination.
She left the path and approached the archway from the side, hoping to take Celebrant and Obregon by surprise. Treading carefully, she peeked around the corner and saw a large, rectangular room. If the room was twenty yards wide, it must have been sixty yards long. Similar to outside by the river, the light in the room had no observable source. At the far end of the chamber, a smooth wooden rod stood vertically atop a tall pedestal. A rectangular reflecting pool filled most of the room, with aisles down the sides granting access to the far end. On the left side of the pool, Celebrant strode purposefully toward the pedestal across the room. On the right side, Obregon hurried toward the same destination. Mysteriously, no matter how many steps they took, neither man seemed to make any progress.
Kendra crept into the room. If Celebrant or Obregon looked back, they would easily see her. The room was not very large, and both of them were only a third of the way toward the far end. Kendra crossed to the center of the base of the reflecting pool, directly opposite the rod, which was mirrored clearly in the still water. She heard forlorn whispers and sighs emanating from the dark pool, just like in the river. It was impossible to guess how deep the water might be.
Moving carefully, Kendra snuck over to the side of the pool behind Obregon. He was only about fifteen paces down the aisle from her, still walking briskly without advancing. If she could creep up behind him and turn him to platinum, that might even the odds quite a bit!
Her first step toward Obregon caused her to pause. With that step, the entire room seemed to elongate. The far end of the reflecting pool looked almost twice as far away, and it would now take more than twenty paces to reach Obregon.
Kendra took a couple more steps and watched the room telescope even more. Obregon had to be thirty or maybe even forty paces away now. And the far end of the room was getting truly distant. Kendra walked forward more, watching as the room continued to elongate until Obregon was barely in view and the rod was out of sight. The reflecting pool seemed to stretch ahead forever.
Looking back, Kendra found that the start of the reflecting pool looked much more distant than the number of steps she had taken. Walking back in the direction she had come, Kendra found that her progress was as slow as it looked like it should be. Evidently, her return steps neither stretched nor shrank the room, but steps toward the far side quickly incr
eased the journey.
Kendra paused, considering her predicament. Celebrant and Obregon had a huge head start. No wonder they didn’t see her—they had probably gone so far that the near end of the room was long out of view from their present perspective. They had also gone so far that they probably had an impossible lead.
Curious, Kendra jogged back to the front of the room. The ground she had covered in about twenty paces now required a five-minute jog. When Kendra got back to the near end of the pool, she found the room had returned to its original shape—Obregon once again looked perhaps fifteen paces away and was still only a third of the way to the far end.
The farther Celebrant and Obregon went, the longer the room became for them. When Kendra followed, the room stretched for her as well. Was there a better way? Or was the dwarf requiring an epic journey that appeared short at the outset?
Kendra wondered whether Celebrant and Obregon understood how slowly they were progressing. Once both ends of the pool were beyond sight, it was probably difficult to perceive how much ground they had covered and how much remained. If her current vantage of their infinitesimal progress was accurate, it looked like Celebrant and Obregon would be traveling for a very long time.
Studying the room, Kendra wondered if there might be a shortcut. The rod looked tantalizingly close! Besides walking alongside the reflecting pool, the only other obvious option was attempting to swim. If the room didn’t stretch when she was in the water, it would be a relatively short distance to cover. If it did elongate, she might, without going very far, get stranded and drown. Or maybe she could always swim sideways and get out? Perhaps only the length of the room could increase, not the width?
Kendra crouched at the edge of the water. The faint, overlapping whispers made the liquid seem sinister. She had a bad feeling about getting in. Was it just cowardice?
She was no longer trying to find Risenmay. Her instincts were probably there for a reason. Jumping into that water might be the end of her.
It was frustrating. It looked like she could walk to the rod in less than a minute! But as soon as she started to approach, she knew it would stretch out of reach again. How could it be so near and so far? Squatting low like this, at the edge of the water, it almost looked like she could reach out and touch the reflection of the rod. As she considered the reflection, something about the perspective seemed off. Shouldn’t the reflected rod be a little farther away? After she dropped her head even lower, the reflection appeared reachable.