No use waiting for the painfully slow zombie to reach him. Seth jogged toward the creature, the beam of his flashlight bobbing. As he got closer, the emaciated figure came into plain view, wearing the same filthy, tattered clothes.
The yellow cast to the skin and weeping lesions made the wretch disgusting, but not scary. Sure, the thing was taller than him, but not by much, and it moved like it was on the verge of collapse.
Seth focused on the wooden nail protruding from the side of the revenant’s neck. Pulling it out would almost be too easy. Seth wondered if he should do some karate moves to give the revenant a preview of things to come. He had never taken any lessons, but he had seen enough movies to have the general idea.
He stopped jogging about ten paces from the sickly zombie and performed a few fancy punches and a couple of kicks. The revenant kept slowly approaching, mouth twisted in an awful rictus, making no acknowledgment of the martial arts display. Seth flexed both arms, showing the revenant two good reasons to surrender.
The revenant raised an arm and pointed a bony finger at Seth. The shocking cold hit him as completely as if he had fallen into an icy lake. He gasped weakly and his muscles tightened. At his core there remained a warm, confident center, but it was being rapidly eroded. Irrational, gibbering terror was assailing him at the fringes of his focus, trying to smother his self-assurance.
Part of him wanted to collapse and quail. Seth gritted his teeth. Potion or no potion, magical fear or no magical fear, he wasn’t going to succumb, not this time. He willed himself to take a step toward the revenant. His leg refused to function at first. He was numb to the hip, and it felt like heavy weights were holding his foot down. Leaning forward and grunting, he managed a single ponderous step. Then another.
The revenant was still pointing at him, and still coming toward him. Seth knew he could just wait for the revenant to reach him, but something told him it was important to keep moving. He took another step.
The revenant was now within reach. The vaguely malevolent eyes held no personality. A putrid stench polluted the air. The arm of the revenant remained outstretched, and the pointing finger was nearly touching him.
Seth’s confidence dwindled. He knew his body was about to shut down. He eyed the black, ragged fingernail drawing closer to his chest. The warm feeling had shrunk to a fading spark. Horrors began to fill his mind. Gripping the pliers tightly, Seth lifted his arm and, with a choppy motion, brought the pliers down on the bony finger. The revenant displayed no reaction to the blow, but the arm lowered a bit, and the finger had obviously been dislocated.
Teeth clenched, Seth fought against what felt like tremendous gravity to take a step to the side. Mustering all his strength, he kicked the revenant in the back of the knee. The knee buckled and the revenant fell. Seth stumbled forward and knelt on its chest, feeling prominent ribs against his shins.
The revenant glared up at him. Seth could not move. His arms trembled. The final spark of confidence was dying. Seth could feel the deluge of irrational fear waiting to overwhelm him. In a moment it would. The revenant reached up, both hands moving slowly but purposefully toward Seth’s neck.
Seth thought about all the people depending on him. Coulter had sacrificed himself for him. Kendra was alone in the cottage. His grandparents and Dale were trapped in a dungeon. He could do this. Courage was his thing. It didn’t have to be fast. He just had to get there.
Seth focused on the nail and began moving the pliers toward it. He could not move quickly. It was as if the air had become a gel. If he tried to go fast, his progress halted. Pushing slowly and steadily, the hand with the pliers gradually advanced.
The hands of the revenant reached his throat. Fingers so cold they burned pressed into his flesh. The rest of his body was numb.
Seth didn’t care. The pliers kept moving. Strong, merciless fingers squeezed his neck tighter. Seth gripped the wooden nail with the pliers. He tried to yank it out, but it would not budge.
Seth felt like he was drowning. The spark of confidence was gone, but grim determination remained. The only sensation was the searing pain in his neck. Ever so slowly, his arm feeling distant, hardly connected, Seth began withdrawing the nail, watching it slide out centimeter by centimeter. The nail was longer than he expected — it kept coming and coming, bloodlessly emerging from the hole it had long inhabited. His hand slowed. It felt like the air was congealing from a gel to a solid. The strangling grip of the revenant prevented him from breathing. Sweat beaded on his brow.
With dreamlike slowness, the last of the long wooden nail emerged from the neck. He saw a tiny space between the tip of the nail and the empty hole. For an instant, Seth thought he noticed something flicker across the revenant’s face, relief in the eyes, the hideous smile becoming slightly more sincere.
And then the air was no longer solid, and he was falling, and everything went dark.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Inverted Tower
Wearing a blanket like a shawl, Kendra straddled a thick limb in a tree with a good view of the cottage. The night was just cool enough to make her glad for the blanket, which was currently invisible along with the rest of her. Before climbing to her current perch she had crisscrossed the area touching the boles of several other trees, in case an imp tried to track her scent.
Although she felt exhausted, her precarious position helped motivate her to keep alert. If she nodded off, she would fall about ten feet and receive a very rude awakening from the uncaring ground. She had spent the majority of her time astride the limb either furious at Seth or fretting about him. It was not fair that he had abandoned her and left her vulnerable, nor that he had taken action without consulting her. But she also realized that he was trying to do what he thought was right, and that he would probably pay a heavy price for his misguided bravery, which gave her a reason to rein in her unkind thoughts.
Tense and anxious, Kendra strained her eyes and ears for any sign of an enemy approaching, or of Mendigo returning. She was unsure how she would proceed once Mendigo reappeared. Even though it was too late to save Seth from his fate, a big part of her wanted to go after him rather than flee Fablehaven. At the same time, she knew that if she could find the Sphinx, it might be her best chance to rescue her grandparents and maybe even discover a way to restore Seth, Tanu, Coulter, and Warren from their albino states.
Waiting impatiently on the limb, Kendra was stunned to see Warren climb out onto the observation platform atop the cottage. She watched him in astounded silence as he stretched and rubbed his arms. The night was too dim for her to observe details, but he appeared to be moving about like a normal person.
“Warren!” she hissed.
He jumped and turned toward her. “Who’s there?” he asked.
She was so surprised to hear him speak that it momentarily prevented her from answering. “You can talk! Oh my gosh! What happened?”
“Of course I can talk. I’m sorry — who are you?”
“I’m Kendra.” She couldn’t believe it. He seemed perfectly fine.
“I’m going to need a little more to go on.” He squinted in her direction. The night probably looked darker to him than it did to her, and of course she was invisible.
“I’m Kendra Sorenson. Stan and Ruth are my grandparents.”
“If you say so. What compelled you to hide in a tree in the middle of the night? Can you tell me how I got here?”
“Meet me at the back door,” Kendra said. “I’ll be there in a second.” Warren had somehow been cured! She was no longer alone! She slid off the limb and climbed down from the tree. Taking off the glove, she walked out from among the trees and through the garden to the back door, where Warren met her.
Standing in the doorway, he studied her. He looked even more handsome now that he had possession of himself. His striking eyes were a silvery hazel. Had they been that color before? “It’s you,” he said in curious wonder. “I remember you.”
“From when you were mute?” she asked.
<
br /> “Was I mute? That’s a first. Come inside.”
Kendra entered. “You were a mute albino for a few years.”
“Years?” he exclaimed. “What year is it?”
She told him and he looked flummoxed. They walked to the table in the main room.
He ran a white hand through his thick hair, then stared at his palm. “I thought I was looking sort of bleached,” he said, flexing his fingers. “The last thing I remember was something coming toward me in the grove. It could have been yesterday. I was overcome by a panic like I had never known, and my mind withdrew to a dark place. I felt nothing there, hemmed in by pure terror, disconnected from my senses, retaining a groggy semblance of self-awareness. Near the end I saw you, wreathed in light. But it felt like hours lapsing, not days, certainly not years.”
“You’ve been catatonic,” Kendra said. “There is a revenant in the grove, and everybody who goes there ends up like you did.”
“I haven’t wasted away too terribly,” he said, patting himself. “I feel a tad slimmer, but not withered like I should be after years in a coma.”
“You could move around, but always in a daze,” Kendra explained. “Your brother Dale made sure you got exercise. He took good care of you.”
“Is he here?”
“He’s locked in the dungeon with my grandparents,” Kendra said. “The entire preserve is in danger. Members of the Society of the Evening Star have taken over the house. One of them is a narcoblix, so I’ve been awake for a couple of days straight. They are trying to get the artifact.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re saying there isn’t going to be a Welcome-Back-from-Your-Coma Party?”
Kendra smiled. “Until we rescue the others, I’m all you get.”
“Sooner or later, I want cake and ice cream. You mentioned the artifact. Do they know where it is?”
She nodded. “They weren’t sure what to do about the revenant. My brother went to fight it. Since you’re suddenly awake… I think he must have defeated it.”
“Your brother?”
“My little brother,” she said, suddenly rather proud of him. “He took off with the key to the tower and a crazy plan to use a courage potion to counteract the fear radiating from the revenant. I thought he was nuts, but it must have worked.”
“He has the key to the inverted tower?” Warren asked.
“We stole it from Vanessa. She’s the narcoblix.”
“Your brother intends to enter the tower?”
“He wants to get the artifact before they do,” Kendra said.
“How old is he?”
“Twelve.”
Warren looked astonished. “What kind of training does he have?”
“Not much. I’m worried about him.”
“You should be. If he goes into that tower alone, he will not emerge alive.”
“Can we go after him?” Kendra asked.
“Sounds like we’d better.” He dropped his gaze to his hands, shaking his head. “So now I’m albino? Don’t stand too close; my luck might rub off. I set out, seems like yesterday, to retrieve the artifact. That was what led me to the grove. I knew a danger lurked there, but the overwhelming fear took me off guard. Now, after losing years of my life in a panic-induced trance, I get to pick up right where I left off.”
“Why were you after the artifact?”
“It was a clandestine commission,” Warren said. “We had reason to believe the secret of Fablehaven might have been breached, so I was charged with removing and transferring the artifact.”
“Who had you do that?”
Warren gave her a measuring stare. “I’m a member of a covert organization that combats the Society of the Evening Star. I can’t say any more.”
“The Knights of the Dawn?”
Warren tossed up his hands. “Nice. Who told you that?”
“Dale.”
Warren shook his head. “Telling that guy a secret is like writing it across the sky. Anyhow, yes, we had reason to suspect Fablehaven had been discovered by the Society, and I was supposed to locate the artifact.”
“Ready to finish what you started?”
“Why not? Looks like things fell apart around here without me. Time to put Humpty back together again. None of my gear is where I left it, but ill-equipped or not, we’d better hurry if we hope to catch your brother before he enters the tower. I take it Hugo isn’t around.”
“Vanessa sent him to the farthest corner of Fablehaven with orders to stay put,” Kendra said.
“The stables are far enough from here that getting a horse will save us no time. I know the way to the valley. You up for a night hike?”
“Yes,” she said. “Mendigo should return soon. He’s an enchanted puppet the size of a man, and can help us get there faster.”
“An enchanted puppet? You’re not exactly an average teenager, are you? I bet you’ve got some stories to tell.”
Kendra was pleased by the admiration in his voice, and hoped it wasn’t showing on her face. Why was she thinking about the moment she had kissed him? She was suddenly very conscious of the way she was standing, and had no idea what to do with her hands. She had to stop noticing how cute he was. This was the wrong time for silly crushes! “One or two,” she managed to say.
“I’m going to scavenge for equipment,” Warren said, hurrying over to the cupboards.
“I have a glove that makes me invisible when I hold still,” Kendra said. “And several magical potions, though I’m not sure what they do.”
“Of course you do,” he said, rifling through some drawers. “Where did you get all that?”
“The glove belonged to a man named Coulter.”
“Coulter Dixon?” he asked urgently. “Why do you speak of him in the past tense?”
“He became a mute albino like you. Which probably means he’s fine now, except that he’s locked up in the dungeon with Dale.”
“Jackpot!” Warren announced.
“What?”
“Cookies.” He stuck one in his mouth. “What about the potions?”
“A guy named Tanu. He’s a former mute albino too now, but I don’t know where he is.”
“I’ve heard of Tanu the potion master,” Warren said. “Never met him.”
Just then Kendra heard a faint jingling of hooks. She ran to the front door. Mendigo came to a halt beside the porch. “Our ride is here,” Kendra said.
“One minute,” Warren called. He returned promptly with a coil of rope looped over one shoulder and an ax in his hand. “Best weapon I could find,” he said, hefting the ax.
“Mendigo can carry us,” she said. “He’s stronger than he looks.”
“That may be, but we’ll travel faster if I run alongside. Off we go, then.”
“Mendigo,” Kendra said. “Carry me to the place you just took Seth, fast as you can. And don’t lose Warren.” She pointed at Warren for emphasis. She scrambled up onto Mendigo’s back and they set off at a brisk pace.
Warren did a good job keeping up at first, but he was nearly running at a full sprint, and before long he was gasping and wheezing. Kendra ordered Mendigo to carry him as well, and Warren consented. “I don’t have the wind I used to, or the legs,” he apologized.
Warren was considerably bigger than Seth or Kendra, and Mendigo did not run quite as speedily while carrying him. Occasionally Warren insisted on running for a minute or two, trying to maximize their pace.
The night wore on. At last they reached the valley. The stars in the east were growing faint as the sky began to pale. Mendigo soon reached the unseen boundary that he could not cross.
“He can’t enter the grove, just like Hugo,” Warren remarked. “If Hugo had been with me that night, I would not have lost those years.”
“Set us down, Mendigo,” Kendra said. “Guard the grove from all intruders.”
“What have we here?” Warren murmured, stooping and examining the ground.
“What?” Kendra said.
“I think your br
other was here. Follow me.” Warren jogged toward the trees, clutching the ax.
Kendra rushed to keep up. “Could there be other dangers in the grove?” she asked.
“Doubtful,” Warren said. “This has been the revenant’s domain since the hiding of the artifact and the founding of Fablehaven. Few would dare tread this cursed ground.”
“Wait a second,” Kendra said. “Here’s Seth’s emergency kit. He lost it the first time he came to the grove.” Kendra retrieved the cereal box from where it lay.
“First time?” Warren asked.
“Long story,” Kendra said.
“Look here,” Warren said. “The key. Your brother is not inside the tower. He’s probably injured or spent. We’d better hurry.”
They trotted through the trees. Warren held the ax in one hand, the key in the other. “What’s that up ahead?” Warren said. “A flashlight?”
Kendra saw the glow as well, low to the ground. As they hurried nearer, she saw that it was indeed a fallen flashlight. Gauging by the faintness of the bulb, the batteries were nearly depleted. Beside the flashlight lay a skeleton clad in rags. And atop the skeleton lay her brother, facedown.
Warren knelt beside Seth, felt his wrist for a pulse, and rolled him over. One of Seth’s hands remained closed around a pair of pliers that held nothing. The flashlight revealed ugly mottled marks on Seth’s throat. Warren leaned in for a closer look. “His neck is bruised and burned, but he’s breathing.”
“Shouldn’t Vanessa be in control of him?” Kendra asked. “You know, the narcoblix?”
“This is no natural sleep,” Warren said. “She may have power over him, but she can’t animate limbs that refuse to function. He paid a severe price to best the revenant — it was evidently a very close contest. Potion or no potion, your brother must have the heart of a lion!”
“He’s very brave,” Kendra said, tears pooling in her eyes. Her lips trembled. “Can I borrow the light?” Warren handed her the flashlight and she found a small potion in the cereal box. “He was very proud that Tanu gave him a potion that could boost his energy in an emergency.”
[Fablehaven 02] - Rise of the Evening Star Page 28