by Liz Marsham
Zarya walked over to sling an arm around Piper’s shoulders. “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, I just figured out part of this puzzle. Specifically, I figured out what happens if we fail.”
Em stared up at the wall. Stray pebbles and a shower of pulverized ice pattered down from the faraway top. “What?”
“That’s the bad news,” Zarya said. “We get smooshed.”
6
In Which Everything Is Loud
“Okay!” Arkayna shouted, spreading her arms wide in warning. “No more touching things! For real this time!”
Em nodded vigorously, still staring up at the wall that was now just a bit closer to her. Then she noticed Zarya and Piper pointing at some of the columns and whispering to each other. “Hey, uh, Zarya? Piper? Did you hear what Arkayna said?”
“Yeah, it was hard to miss,” Zarya replied. “But c’mere and look at this.”
Em, Arkayna, and Doug went to stand by Zarya and Piper.
“See how the gold parts of some of these line up?” Zarya gestured at two nearby pillars, then a third, then a fourth. “I know you’re not gonna like this, Arkayna, but I think we gotta move these around.”
“Yeah, they’re gonna make a picture!” agreed Piper. “It’s gonna be sweeeeeet!”
Arkayna squinted. “That makes sense, actually.” Then she looked dubiously at the base of the nearest pillar. “But how are we going to move them? They’re huge, and now they’re spinning.”
“Well,” said Zarya with a shrug, “we could try just pushing them.” Seeing Arkayna’s concerned look, she added, “We have to try something.”
Em nodded. “Zarya’s right, Arkayna. Let’s try carefully pushing just one and see what happens.”
“All right,” Arkayna agreed. She moved closer to the pillar Piper had touched, holding out her staff again. Leaning forward, she furrowed her brow as she peered at the smooth yellow surface of its bottom stripe. “I just wish we could find some kind of hints about—”
“Whoa, look out!” called Doug. He pulled Arkayna backward as one of the edges of the triangular pillars spun into the space where she had just been. Arkayna’s arm flew out as she fell back, and the top of her staff glanced off the pillar’s surface.
WHAAAAAAAANG! The orb of Arkayna’s staff flashed green as it impacted the gold, and the noise of the collision seemed to be amplified many times over. With a rumble, the pillar began to move away from Arkayna! It trundled across the open space, the ground seeming to part before it and then re-form in its wake, until it collided with another column.
“Way to go!” Piper grinned. “I bet—”
BOOM. Scraaaaaaaape. The wall moved again on its pivot, grinding a few feet closer.
“Oh,” Em realized. “It closes in every time we do anything?” She did some quick calculations, looking back and forth between the walls. “We need a plan here. We’ve got maybe a few dozen moves to play with, and there are a dozen of these things to line up.”
“Let’s spread out,” decided Arkayna. “We’ll look at this from all angles and see what kind of picture the gold sections will make. Then we’ll figure out where to start.”
The five of them took up positions all around the chasm, trying to figure out how to align the gold pieces. After a minute, another BOOM sounded, and the wall moved in on them again.
Zarya shook her head. “You were half right, Em. The wall closes in when we do anything, and when we do nothing. I can’t make any kind of real picture, but I think we should just try to make all the gold parts of each pillar touch and see what happens.”
Piper nodded. “I can kinda see it making a sort of blobby, curvy, spiky … thing? I’m sure it’ll get clearer as we go. Let’s start with this one!” She pointed at a pillar near the entrance.
“Hey, I don’t know if this is right, but…” Doug trailed off.
“No, Doug, what is it?” said Em.
“Shouldn’t we move all the pillars away from the wall that’s moving? That’ll give us the most time to—”
“He’s right!” exclaimed Piper. “Arkayna, bring your shoving stick over here!”
As Arkayna hurried across to Piper’s column, Em frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that Arkayna has to move all of them herself,” she muttered. “What if…” She gave the pillar next to her an experimental shove as a corner of it rotated by her. Nothing happened. “Hmmmmmm … The staff flared up when it hit the pillar. I don’t have a staff, but maybe if I use my magic…” She held up a hand and summoned her pink shield. As the next corner of the pillar went by, Em gave it a hard whap with the shield.
WHAAAAAAAANG! The pillar sailed across the valley, stopping between two other columns.
BOOM. Scraaaaaaaaaape. The wall shifted closer. Now it was within five feet of the pillar Arkayna and Piper stood by.
Piper looked back at the wall and then over at Em. “I wanna try!” she decided. She jumped in front of Arkayna, who had already started to raise her staff. “C’mon, Hoopy, don’t let me down!” Piper shouted, summoning one of her golden Mysticon Energy Hoops. She tossed the ring at the huge column.
WHAAAAAAAANG! As the column started to move away from her, Piper did a little dance in celebration. “Go, Hoopy!” she chanted. “Go, Hoopy! Go—oop!”
A BOOM cut her off. Piper skipped away, Arkayna on her heels, as the wall ground even closer.
“All right, let’s do this!” Zarya summoned her Mysticon bow and nocked a magic blue arrow, aiming at the next pillar.
Doug looked anxiously around as the WHAAAAANG of Zarya’s arrow hitting the pillar echoed all around them. “I feel like a fifth leg on a griffin,” he said. “I wish I could help somehow.”
Em hurried to reassure him. “Maybe you can! The pillars are responding to Mysticon magic, sure, but maybe they would move for any helpful magic. Why not try a potion?”
Doug pulled an orange, glowing vial off of the belt Malvaron gave him. “This one is for Titan Strength,” he mused.
Em nodded. “Perfect!” She smiled encouragingly and gave him a big thumbs-up.
In one gulp, Doug downed the contents of the vial. A second later, a ripple of orange energy seemed to flow over him. “Whoa,” he said, “I feel … helpful!” He grinned. “Titanically helpful!” He took a deep breath and gave a nearby pillar a huge shove. To his and Em’s delight, it moved a few feet … but then it stopped again.
“Okay, so not as good as Mysticon magic,” Doug said.
“But plenty good enough!” Em said. “Let’s get this puzzle solved!”
Together, and—between the magical impacts and the grinding pillars and the booming, scraping wall and the group’s shouted instructions to one another—with a lot of noise, the team assembled the pillars into a line against the non-moving side of the chasm. As Zarya’s arrow careened off the last pillar and shifted it into place, the five of them let out a cheer. The gold sections were all lined up and touching!
Em squinted up at the resulting shape. It was, she thought, just like Piper had described: a blobby, curvy, spiky … thing. Not what she would have chosen for a puzzle solution, but then again—
Another BOOM echoed through the cavern. They turned to watch as the far wall pivoted and scraped closer again … and completely covered the way they had come in.
The puzzle was still unsolved, Em realized. And now they were trapped.
7
In Which Perspective Shifts and Stars Align
“Ohhhhhh my goblin,” said Em. “This is bad.”
“Look on the bright side,” Piper chirped. “The way out was in the very middle of the wall, and it just got covered up now. That means we’ve still got half our moves left!”
“Huh,” Doug said. “So we’re only halfway to being doomed?”
“Don’t get too bright-eyed,” Zarya put in. “Everything is still very, very not cool.”
“Wait.” Arkayna held out a hand to quiet them, staring up at the pillars. “‘Don’t get too bright-eyed,’ you said.
I think you’re onto something!”
“Oh … kay?” Zarya arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“No, really!” Arkayna said. “What if the gold isn’t what we should be paying attention to? The gold and the ice are both glowing; what if the trick is to ignore them?”
“Ohhh,” breathed Em, picking up on the idea. “We look at the gold and white together as the background color, and we try to make a picture with the brown rock!”
They all stared up at the pillars again, this time paying close attention to the rocky sections. Doug hmmed thoughtfully, using his finger to trace a shape in the air. “Does it have to be a picture? What if it’s a letter?”
“Huh?” asked Piper. She ran over to Doug and tried to find a place to look where she could line up his moving finger with the pillars. “You’re too tall!” she cried, hopping up and down. “Come down here and do that!”
Doug ducked down and traced the shape again, reaching out in front of Piper so she could see.
“He’s right!” she said. “It’s an M!”
Em gasped. Now she could see it, too—they were only a handful of moves away from the rock forming the curves and slash of the Gemina letter M. “That has to be it! M for Mysticons!”
With Doug calling out instructions, the girls bashed and whapped and twanged their Mysticon weapons against the pillars again. The booming, moving wall got closer and closer, but soon Piper whipped her hoop at one last column, which ground into place with a satisfying THUD. At that moment, the pillars quickly rotated one last time and, with a series of chunking sounds, locked into place with their flat sides aligned, forming a solid wall of gold, ice, and rock. The shining gold and the glowing white ice flared even more brightly, outlining the brown M in stark contrast. Then the wall of columns began to slowly sink into the earth.
“This is so cool!” giggled Piper.
“This is good,” Em agreed. Then, more hesitantly: “This is good, right?”
“It must be,” sighed Arkayna.
“I’m not relaxing until we know what happens next,” muttered Zarya.
“Uh, well, good news!” Doug spoke up. “You can relax!” Then he pointed a finger upward regretfully. “But, bad news? The walls are closing in again.”
The girls looked up in alarm to where the stars glittered between the walls of the now very skinny triangular chasm. Sure enough, while the one side had stopped moving toward them, the tops of both walls were now beginning to change and shift. While they watched, the rock and ice seemed to reach toward the stars from both directions.
Then, as they watched, fingers of ice grew outward from the canyon walls. But instead of obscuring the stars as they formed, the icy protrusions … moved the stars! The ice grew, and the stars obediently shifted out of the way, clustering closer together in their shrinking patch of sky.
“Whaaaaaaat the hex?” whispered Zarya. Em had no answer for her.
Its job seemingly done, the ice withdrew into the sides of the chasm. And then, to everyone’s relief, the moving wall began to recede, pivoting back the way it had come. The path they had traveled came back into view. With one final grinding noise, the wall shifted out of the way even farther, and another path appeared in the point opposite the entrance.
The Mysticons and Doug stared up at the sky in wonder. The cluster of lights above them was definitely a different shape. They had actually moved the stars! Finally Piper broke the silence.
“That … was … amazing!” she cried. “Quick, let’s go find the next puzzle!” She ran off toward the new path, shouting back over her shoulder, “Best ice dimension ever!”
Em smiled. She had to agree.
8
In Which Our Heroes Break the Oldest Rule
At first, the new path looked much like the old one. Glowing ice veins traveled with them along a narrow, rocky ravine that twisted and curved back on itself. Then the Mysticons and Doug turned one particularly sharp corner, and the scenery changed.
The path ended in a small, rough circle. In the center of the open space was a statue of the original Mysticons, just like the one they had all seen in the palace treasury … but this version was made entirely of shining ice.
Past the statue, passages forked off to the left and right. And between those two passages, the normally uneven rock wall was smooth and velvety. The veins of ice, instead of shooting randomly through the rock, converged here and formed a large rectangular frame. Shifting colors, the ice then spidered inward to create a picture inside the frame.
“Heyyyyy,” said Zarya as she looked at the image appreciatively, “looks like the original Mysticons liked to smash orcs, too. I gotta try that net-arrow thing!”
Indeed, the picture showed the original Mysticons beating back an entire horde of orcs. At the far left, the tall human form of the first Mysticon Ranger stood alert on a rocky spire, his eyes locked on the arrow he had just fired. The arrow trailed a spidery, glowing energy web behind it. The web was about to drop on a whole cluster of orcs, who looked up in dismay. Above him, the elven Mysticon Striker somersaulted through the air. She was tossing her golden hoops at a few orcs attempting to claw their way up the spire toward the Ranger.
“Awwwww, look at the old me, looking out for the old you,” Piper said to Zarya, pointing in excitement. “Striker and Ranger, buds forever!” Piper and Zarya grinned and high-fived.
Below and to the right of the Ranger, the original Mysticon Dragon Mage fired her dragon bracer at the horde, her mouth open in a triumphant shout. The blue Dragon avatar streaked out of the bracer and across the battlefield, orcs fleeing from it in terror.
“She looks so commanding,” said Arkayna.
Em caught the hint of wistfulness in her friend’s voice and hurried to reassure her. “You look like that all the time!”
Arkayna smiled at Em. “Thanks.” Then she pointed to the center of the frame, where the first Mysticon Knight swung his glowing two-handed sword in a wide arc, colliding directly with the breastplate of the largest orc. “Original you is kicking some serious butt. But I bet you could take that orc, too. Easy.”
Em looked more closely at the broadsword. “Interesting technique,” she decided, “but I’ll stick with my shield.”
“Hey, I have a question,” Doug said, peering at the right side of the image. “This … doesn’t look like an orc.”
The Mysticons hurried to join Doug, and Em gasped. “You’re right! That must be her!”
Descending on the back line of orcs was a fifth figure, a nimble dwarf wearing a gold headpiece and a lithe black outfit with gold trim. In each hand, she held a flaming dagger, ready to attack the unsuspecting orcs from behind.
The girls studied the dwarven figure for a moment. Then Arkayna turned to look Doug appraisingly up and down, and the cyclops sucked in air between his teeth. “Oooh,” he muttered, “I think I’m too tall for that suit.”
“Gotta say,” said Zarya, “I never thought of you as a dagger guy.”
“Oh,” Doug said. “You might be right.”
“Well, but!” said Em. “The original Knight used a broadsword, and I don’t. You don’t have to use daggers.”
Doug brightened up a bit. “Okay. That’s good. Maybe I’m more of a slingshot guy. Or a ‘stern talking-to’ guy, even?”
“Look at all the shiny on her head!” Piper put in. “That thing looks serious!”
“But it’s not a tiara, like the Dragon Mage headpiece,” Arkayna said, tapping the crown on her own head. “It’s more for her face. Look how it comes down to frame her eyes.”
“Ooh, maybe it’s another weapon!” said Em. “Like, maybe she can shoot eyeblasts with it. Doug, that would be perfect for you!”
“Darn rootin’ tootin’!” agreed Piper. “Your eyeblast would be like booooosh!” She mimed being caught in an energy wave from Doug’s direction, stumbling backward until she hit the back of the ice sculpture. Dramatically, she plastered herself against the outcropping between the Ranger and the Dragon Mage, as i
f she were being smashed flat. “And the bad guys would be all aaaaaaack!” She stuck her tongue out and slid down the statue, rolling her eyes back in her head.
“The real question,” Zarya said, “is why is she here”—she pointed to the sneaky dwarf’s image on the wall—“and not there.” She pointed at the sculpture.
“She’s not on the original statue eith—” Em started.
“Right,” Zarya said, “but I’m saying why remake that statue here, as part of her prison? What’s the point of showing the fifth Mysticon in one place but not the other?”
“Maybe the person who built this place is taunting her,” said Em sadly. “Reminding her that even though she fought with the team, she didn’t get included in their history.”
“Owwww…” Piper complained, getting up and rubbing her lower back. “This thing is pointy.” She leaned forward to inspect the outcropping more closely. “Hey, c’mere, check this out!”
The rest of them hurried over to Piper, who began climbing on and around the jutting ice, shifting her feet around to different poses. “Piper,” said Arkayna, “what the dragon patties are you doing?”
“Look!” Piper replied, lifting up one foot to show them. “There are some super-rough patches on this part! And I thought, hey, if I were a fifth Mysticon and I was gonna be on this statue, where would I be? And there is this big empty space right in the middle by these stairs, and”—Piper stabbed a thumb back toward the image on the wall—“she looks kinda crouchy and bendy, and I was wondering, if I put my feet and hands where the rough parts are…” She struck another pose, up on her toes at the tip of the spire, one hand splayed on the ice in front of her for balance. “Maybe something like this?”
Em’s eyes went wide. “You’re saying she used to be on the statue and got taken off?”
Piper shrugged. “Maybe!”
“If the curse was designed to erase all record of her,” Arkayna mused, “maybe it altered the statue magically? But why would the magic leave a trace like … Wait. She’s here. Like, actually here! Why aren’t we asking her?” She tipped her head back toward the stars. “Hello?” she called. Then louder: “Hel-lo?”