by Gary Paulsen
“Huh?”
THERE’S A TRICK TO FOLLOWING THEM.
Tom looked at the sky. “What trick?”
I DON’T KNOW. I’M WORKING ON IT.
“Work as fast as you can.” They stepped onto the trail.
WELCOME TO THE SECOND LEVEL OF RODOMONTE’S REVENGE: THE MOUNTAINS. YOU ARE GOING TO FIND THIS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE PLAINS.
The wind was stronger than it had been in the first game, and the trail was steeper. Brett struggled to keep up with Tom. He wasn’t going to let them separate; if a spider got him, he wanted to make sure it got both of them. But Tom was in good shape, and Brett was not. By the time they left the foothills, he was straggling. He’d dropped back fifty feet when he felt the ground giveaway.
“Tunnel spider!”
He tried to leap from the pit, but every step was like walking in oatmeal. Tom scrambled back down the trail until he was only ten feet away, then stopped.
“Tom! Help me!”
Tom closed his eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”
“Tom!” A web knotted around Brett’s sword wrist. He avoided a second, but another entangled his ankle. A small black hole opened at his feet. “Tom, please!” Brett pleaded as he sank even deeper into the muck.
CHAPTER 7
Tom looked back, swallowed, then shouted something—what, Brett was too busy and frightened to hear—and leaped to the edge of the pit, his sword swinging. He cut Brett’s arm free. Brett stabbed down into the black hole, which had now sucked in his legs up to his knees. With Tom gripping his collar, he worked his feet loose, cutting the web away from his ankles.
Something hissed.
The spider crawled out of its tunnel. It was mean and angry and a thousand tints of ugly, a squat brown body ringed with swarming black legs, a head with eyes like mud and fangs like dripping pincers. It leaped on Brett, reached greedily for his throat, driving Tom away. It smelled like something that had died and been left too long in a corner.
“Eat this, bloodsucker!” Brett jammed his pistol into its mouth. The spider’s momentum carried his arm down its throat, all the way up to his elbow. He fired twice. The laser bolts exploding inside the spider rang like distant thunder. It shivered, folded its legs beneath it, and slithered dead into the hole.
Brett grimaced as he wiped his arm off on the trail. “Yuck. Spider spit.”
Tom didn’t say anything. He sat with his back against the mountain, panting, his face as pale as weathered paint.
“What’s the matter?”
Tom swallowed and wiped the dripping sweat from his forehead. “Did I ever tell you how scared to death I am of spiders?”
Brett smiled. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”
“I lied.”
Brett crawled out of the pit. “Thanks for coming back.” The wind kicked him in the back, almost toppling him over the edge. “We’d better get going.”
A hundred yards up the trail the wind became so strong they had to crawl. Fifty yards farther they were on their bellies. Even that wasn’t low enough; Brett had to spread his arms and legs to keep from being blown over the side. He looked down. The plains seemed so far away that he could have been in orbit.
“This is as far as I got last time,” Tom called back over the howling gale. “The wind just picked me up and tossed me over. There was nothing I could do.”
“How much farther do you think it is to the castle?”
“Miles.”
“We’ll have to go back until the wind dies down.”
Tom nodded. “We can’t stay here.”
By the time they reached the spider tunnel, the wind was too strong for them to go any lower. “We’ll never make it,” Tom shouted.
“We’ll have to take shelter in the tunnel.”
“Not me. Remember, I hate spiders.”
“It’s either that or get dashed to bloody pieces.”
Tom thought for a moment. “Okay, but you go first. Shoot anything that moves. When you’re done, I’ll come down.”
Brett warmed up his trigger finger and dropped into the hole. He fell ten feet before landing on the spider he’d killed earlier. It felt like an underinflated water bed. As far as he could tell, the tunnel was clear.
“Come on down.”
Tom dropped, hitting the spider with his heels hard enough to split it open. The guts that spilled out smelled like used Kitty Litter. Brett wanted to throw up. Tom did.
“Get used to it,” Brett said. “We’ll have to smell it until the wind dies down.”
Words flashed on the tunnel wall as if a ghost were writing them. THE WIND WILL ONLY GET STRONGER.
“Then what are we supposed to do here, Willie?”
FOLLOW THE TUNNEL.
Tom stepped away from the words, shaking his head and wiping his mouth. “You want us to follow a spider tunnel? No way.”
I’VE DISCOVERED THE TRICK TO REACHING THE CASTLE. REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT ALL TRAILS LEADING THERE, YET NONE REALLY DOES? IF YOU FOLLOW THE TRAILS, THEY WON’T. IF YOU FOLLOW THE TUNNELS THAT BEGIN AT THE TRAILS, THEY WILL. THEY’LL NOT ONLY LEAD YOU THERE BUT ALSO BYPASS THE THIRD LEVEL, TAKING YOU PAST THE CASTLE WALL INTO THE THRONE ROOM’S ANTECHAMBER.
“We’ll run into more spiders this way,” Brett said.
MAYBE IN THE TUNNEL, BUT NOT ONCE YOU LEAVE IT.
Tom gulped and stared ahead into the darkness. “Do we have another choice?”
NO.
Brett sighed. “Then we might as well get started. Don’t worry, Tom. I’ll lead.”
The tunnel was blacker than any black Brett had ever seen. The next three hours were a nightmare of blind stumbling up and down and around and right and left, wading through ink, his pistol hand following the wall and his sword out in front of him to greet any unseen and unwanted attackers. Suddenly the tunnel cut sharply to the right and began a gradual incline. Brett halted. Tom ran into him.
“What did you stop for?”
“Something’s changing.” He sniffed. “Smell the air. It’s fresh.”
“And it’s getting gray up ahead. I bet that’s antechamber torchlight.” Brett couldn’t see his face, but he knew Tom was smiling. “We’re going to get out of this without running into any more spiders. This isn’t so bad after all.” He pushed by Brett and hurried forward. Brett followed more slowly.
The light grew brighter. A hundred yards later they came to the end of the tunnel. Tom squinted up at a circle of bright light three feet above their heads. “Boost me up; then I’ll give you a hand.”
“What do you suppose is up there?”
“The antechamber, Level Four, and no more spiders. Let’s go.”
Brett cupped his hands for Tom’s foot. A few seconds later Tom was lying next to the hole, reaching down. Brett took his hand and scrambled out.
WELCOME TO THE THIRD LEVEL OF RODOMONTE’S REVENGE: THE CASTLE WALL. YOU ARE GOING TO FIND THIS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE MOUNTAINS.
“The third level?” Brett asked. “Willie, I thought you said this would take us to Level Four.”
IT SHOULD.… I DON’T KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG. I MUST HAVE MADE A MISTAKE.
A granite wall at least three stories high rose in front of them. Its blocks fitted so tightly that Brett couldn’t work his sword tip between them. It had no gates or windows. He studied the wall with his hands on his hips and clicked his tongue. “If only we had a grappling hook. You could toss it up there easy.”
“Nothing’s going to be easy.” Tom tapped his shoulder. “Look.”
Brett turned. They were standing on a wide, flat basin ringed by purple mountains. Swarming across the basin were hundreds—maybe thousands—of tunnel spiders. And they all were swarming toward them.
CHAPTER 8
Brett and Tom did the only thing they could do: They panicked and ran. By the time they realized that the smart thing to do would have been to dive back into the tunnel, where they could at least fight the spiders one at a time, fifty were past it and
closing in.
“What do we do?” Tom’s laser was firing a steady green stream. He might as well have been trying to put out a forest fire with an eyedropper.
“Keep running!”
They followed the wall, sprinting away from the spiders behind them only to run into more spiders ahead. With two lasers blazing, they cut a path around the wall as they frantically searched for an opening. There was none. The path narrowed.
“What do we do?” Tom asked again. His sword hacked at the webs flying around them. The air looked like a fishing net.
“How do I know?” Brett turned to the sky. “Willie, help us! How do we get in?”
I’M WORKING ON IT.
“Work faster!” A web hit Brett’s chest, knocking him against the wall. He cut it loose.
I’M DOING THE BEST I CAN.
“Lately that hasn’t been enough.” The spiders surrounded them, forcing their backs against the wall.
There has to be a way out of this, Brett thought. As hard as it had been to find, every video game he had ever played had a way out of everything. He had to believe that this one did, too.
Believe. Maybe that was the key.
A spider nipped his shoulder, drawing blood. He ducked beneath its jaws and came up straight with his sword, slitting its belly open. “Willie, can the game use the helmets to monitor thought patterns?”
THEY WEREN’T DESIGNED FOR THAT, BUT I SUPPOSE IT CAN.
“Then the computer can tell if the players believe something is true?”
THAT’S WAY BEYOND OUR PROGRAMMING CAPABILITIES.
Brett jumped to the side to avoid a web, almost bowling Tom over. Spiders swarmed in to where he had been, cutting the ground they’d been defending in half. Now they were back to back, hacking and shooting in every direction. “Do you call what’s happening to us now within your programming capabilities?”
GOOD POINT. MAYBE THE COMPUTER CAN KNOW IF THE PLAYERS BELIEVE SOMETHING. WHY?
Brett didn’t have time to answer. “Tom, it’s up to you to hold them off.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“I might have a way out of this.” He lowered his weapons, turned to the wall, and closed his eyes.
“You’re praying? Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“Just keep them off me so I can concentrate.”
Tom’s laser zinged. Webs splatted, and dying spiders hissed. Brett ignored them. In his mind he pictured the wall, huge and gray and impassable. He forced himself to see a gate in it, a gate large enough to run through.
“I believe,” he said aloud. “At least I think I believe.”
He opened his eyes. The wall was still there, as solid as ever.
Maybe I’m wrong, he thought. Maybe I’m wasting my time.
“Hurry up!” Tom’s sword swept so fast that the blade was a blur. His face dripped sweat, and his chest heaved. “I can only hold them off for a few seconds longer.”
Brett closed his eyes again. He had to be right. There was a gate here. He didn’t just think there was; he knew there was.
With his eyes closed, he stepped forward.
Where the wall should have been, there was nothing. He took another step. There was still nothing. He opened his eyes. He was standing in a threshold arching ten feet over his head. It opened onto a room inside the castle.
“It worked!” He ran through the gate into the room. He looked back to see Tom still fighting. “Come on, Tom!”
“Come on where?” Tom turned his head. “Where did you go?”
“I’m in here, on the other side of the gate.”
“What gate?” Tom looked straight at him, but didn’t see him. “All I see is a wall. Where are you?”
“You have to believe there’s a gate, Tom.”
“A gate where?”
“In the wall. Come on!”
Tom turned and ran, grimacing as if he expected to mash his face into the granite. He stumbled into the room. The gate closed off into cold gray stone, leaving the spiders on the outside. He collapsed to the floor, his chest heaving.
WELCOME TO THE FOURTH LEVEL OF RODOMONTE’S REVENGE: THE THRONE ROOM ANTECHAMBER. YOU ARE GOING TO FIND THIS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE WALL.
Brett laughed and danced in place. “We made it!”
Tom still lay gasping on the floor. “Do you want to know something?”
“What?”
“I never believed there was a gate there. All I saw when I ran toward the wall was stone.”
Brett quit dancing. “Then how did you get through?”
“It didn’t make any difference if I believed in the gate. I just had to believe that you did.”
“Well, it worked.”
Tom wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Let’s just hope that everything else we need works, too.”
CHAPTER 9
The antechamber looked exactly as Brett expected an antechamber to look. Rich tapestries hung from the walls, the floor was so highly polished he could see himself in it, and treasure lay in piles everywhere: chests stuffed with gold and silver, and jewels overflowing baskets the size of barrels. But what was in the room next door, which Brett could see through a portal, made the antechamber look as poor as a soup kitchen. It didn’t have chests of gold and silver; it had dump truck loads of it. It didn’t have baskets of jewels; it had football stadiums bursting with them. Behind a throne in the middle of the room was a gilded mirror that doubled everything, making the treasure seem twice as valuable.
And all that treasure was free for the taking—unless the twelve-foot giant sitting on the throne had something to say about it.
“That must be Rodomonte,” Brett said.
Tom nodded. “What the Lakers wouldn’t give for him.”
“Maybe that’s where he got his treasure.”
“Let’s take him out.”
Brett grabbed Tom’s arm as he strode toward the throne. “Wait.”
“Why?”
“The antechamber is its own level.”
“So?”
“So it won’t let us just waltz right into the throne room.” He looked at the ceiling. “What’s to stop us, Willie?”
A FORCE FIELD BETWEEN THE LEVELS.
“Really?” Tom stuck his sword through the portal. The threshold glowed crimson. In a blinding flash the blade vaporized, leaving only a puff of dry-smelling smoke. “Looks like a force field to me.”
“How do we get by it?” Brett asked.
WELL … Willie paused, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS.
“What do we have to do?”
THE ONLY WAY INTO THE THRONE ROOM IS FOR ONE OF YOU TO NEUTRALIZE THE FIELD. WHILE IT’S RECHARGING, THE OTHER CAN GET THROUGH.
“How do we do that?”
ONE OF YOU WILL HAVE TO BE VAPORIZED.
“Vaporized?”
THE IDEA OF THE GAME IS TO REACH THIS POINT WITH ONE PLAYER HAVING AT LEAST TWO LIVES LEFT, SO HE CAN SACRIFICE ONE TO GET THROUGH THE FIELD. BUT IN YOUR CASE …
“In our case it isn’t a game,” Brett completed the thought for him. “In our case one of us really has to die.”
He looked at Tom. Tom looked at him. They didn’t say anything for a long time.
Finally Tom nodded. “I’ll do it. I don’t have a sword anyway. You’ll have a better chance of beating Rodomonte.”
Brett shook his head. “I’ll do it. With all your ability you’ll probably become a pro athlete. You have a chance to be somebody.”
“I’ll be a minor-league ballplayer for the rest of my life. You go. You’re the one with the brains.”
“I don’t have any brains. You have the brains.”
“Don’t argue with me on this one, Brett. I’m way ahead of you.”
“If you’re way ahead of me, it’s because you’re smarter than I am. I’ll go first.”
“I’m smarter? You’re too dumb to know how much smarter you are than I am.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Th
ey argued for five minutes, each offering brilliant reasons for why he was less intelligent. Brett was about to prove how dumb he was by leaping into the field when more words appeared on the ceiling.
I HAVE A SOLUTION.
“What kind of solution?” Tom asked. “A quiz? Ask me a question. I’m sure to get it wrong.”
I KNOW HOW I CAN GET YOU BOTH THROUGH. IF I SEND SO MANY MESSAGES TO THE GAME THAT IT HAS TO INTERRUPT ITS PROGRAM TO ADDRESS THEM ALL—
“Then we can dive through while it’s interrupted.” Brett laughed. “Willie, you’re a genius!”
“He’s a genius if it works,” Tom said. “Don’t be so sure that it will. He didn’t do such a good job in the tunnel.”
I’VE RUN A PRETTY GOOD ANALYSIS ON THIS ONE. I SHOULD BE RIGHT.
“Is ‘should’ the best you can come up with?”
IT IS UNLESS YOU GIVE ME MORE TIME.
“Take as much as you need.”
Brett sat on a treasure chest to wait. He suddenly felt dizzy. Somehow the treasure chest had changed. It had grown; his feet no longer touched the floor. He looked at Tom. He had changed, too.
“What’s the matter with you, Tom? You look about two feet tall.”
Tom laughed. “I look two feet tall? Take a look at yourself.”
Brett hopped down from the chest. It was more of a drop than a hop. Not only could he no longer sit on the chest, but he couldn’t even reach the lock.
“Willie, I think you’d better hurry.”
WHY?
“We’re shrinking!”
The antechamber was suddenly a maze of giant diamonds and coins the size of wagon wheels. “Tom, where are you?”
“Over here.” Tom’s voice sounded like a mouse’s in a cartoon. Brett couldn’t see him. A coin was in his way.
“You’d better hurry, Willie,” he shouted. “We’re shrinking to almost nothing!”
YOU’RE NOT GIVING ME TIME TO CHECK, YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME ON THIS ONE.
“Just tell us what to do.”
I’M READY TO SEND THE MESSAGES. THE FIRST ONE WILL BE THE WORDS “START RUNNING.” WHEN YOU SEE IT, RUN FOR THE PORTAL AS IF YOUR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT.
“They do,” Tom said. He had muscled his way up onto a ruby for a better view.