Roaring triumphantly, the Minotaur rushed at Warren, who pulled out the key and stumbled away, the spearhead red with his own blood. Scrambling, spraying sand, Warren managed to get a small area of quicksand between the Minotaur and himself.
Kendra flung the flashlight and struck the Minotaur in the back. The brute turned, but she was invisible again. The Minotaur picked up the flashlight, sniffed it, and then sniffed the air, moving toward Kendra.
Using the key like a crutch, Warren came around the quicksand, approaching the Minotaur from behind. The Minotaur whirled and gave chase. Warren skipped away, ending up with his back to a broad expanse of quicksand.
“Warren, quicksand!” Kendra cried.
Too late, he stepped beyond the line in the sand, one leg sinking to his thigh, the rest of him collapsing forward onto the sturdier sand. The Minotaur dashed forward, mace held high to issue the killing stroke. Quick as a mousetrap, Warren thrust upward with the key, the razor tip of the spearhead entering the Minotaur just below the sternum, angled up to pierce his heart. The Minotaur stood still, impaled, and snorted. The mace fell from his hairy hands, landing heavily on the sand.
Warren twisted the key and shoved it in deeper, toppling the Minotaur backwards. Panting, Warren withdrew his leg from the mushy sand.
Kendra ran to him. “That was an amazing trick!” she shouted.
“A desperate one,” he said. “All or nothing.” His hand covered the wound on his abdomen. He swatted at the damp sand coating his leg. “Probably wouldn’t have worked, except the Minotaur thought I was mortally wounded. Course, he might have been right.”
“Is it bad?” she asked.
“It pierced me deep, but clean,” he said. “In straight, out straight. Belly wounds are hard to read. Depends what got punctured. Go fetch the key.”
Kendra crouched beside the supine Minotaur, enjoying the livestock smell even less up close. The key hung on a fine gold chain. She pulled hard, and the chain snapped. “I have it,” Kendra said.
“Get the big one too,” Warren said. The big key was still lodged in the Minotaur’s chest. Kendra had to brace a foot against the beast to tug it free. Warren had taken off his shirt. The blood stood out sharply against his white skin. Kendra averted her eyes. He wadded up his shirt and pressed it against the wound, which was a couple of inches to one side of his belly button. “Let’s hope this stanches the bleeding,” he said. “Can you cut me a length of rope?”
Using the sharp spearhead of the bloody key, Kendra did as he said, and Warren used the rope to bind his shirt in place over the wound. He wiped the blood from the spearhead onto his pants. “Can you go on?” Kendra asked.
“Not much choice,” he said. “Let’s see if the Minotaur’s key works.”
Groaning, Warren used the tall key to pull himself to his feet. He walked to the iron door, inserted the Minotaur’s key, and opened it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Vault
Another stairway spiraled down beyond the open door. More sunstones, brighter than before, lit the way. Warren prodded the steps and found that they were solid. “Kendra,” he said. “Go erase the lines around a few of the sinkholes near the entrance to the room.”
When Kendra returned, Warren was feeling the pulse in his neck. Perspiration dampened his forehead. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m not doing too bad,” he assured her. “Especially for a guy who just underwent involuntary surgery. We have the Minotaur’s key. If we shut the door behind us, our friend the narcoblix will probably have to earn a key of her own.”
“Okay,” Kendra said, stepping into the stairwell with Warren and closing the door. She turned to face him, and vanished.
“Maybe you should just keep the glove handy for the next threat,” Warren said. “It is tough losing track of where you are when we pause.”
Kendra took off the glove. As long as they were moving around, exploring the tower, it wasn’t much of a protection anyway. Slipping it on would be little more trouble than simply holding still. They descended the stairs for some time, finding no false steps until the final few before the very end.
“I like the placement,” Warren said, jumping over them and wincing when he landed. He leaned against the wall, one hand clutching his wound. “Just when you assume all the stairs are solid, you plunge to your doom.”
No door awaited them. Instead, an arched entryway granted access to a broad chamber with a complex mosaic on the floor. The mosaic depicted an enormous battle of primates being waged in tall trees. The perspective was from the ground looking up, creating a disorienting effect.
Motioning for Kendra to stay put, Warren entered the room. A second archway on the far side of the chamber appeared to be the only way out. Satisfied that they faced no immediate threat, Warren beckoned for Kendra to follow.
The instant she stepped into the room, the ax vanished from her grasp. Below her, high in a tree, a chimpanzee screamed. Twirling Kendra’s ax, the manic primate leaped from his high perch and fell upwards toward the ground. The chimpanzee sailed right out of the mosaic, materializing in front of Kendra, brandishing the ax.
Shrieking, Kendra ran away from the ax-wielding chimp, yanking on her glove. Rushing up from behind the chimpanzee, Warren flung the key just as the screeching ape was beginning to give chase. The key sailed true, striking the frenzied beast between the shoulder blades, and the chimpanzee pitched forward onto the floor, long hand twitching, the ax skidding forward over tiny tiles.
“Don’t pick up the ax,” Warren warned. “This chamber is meant to strip us of all weaponry.”
“Except the key,” Kendra said.
Grunting, Warren bent over and retrieved the key, again wiping the spearhead on his pants. “Right,” he said. “My guess is that to pass this room with any weapon besides the key, we would have to slay every monkey in the mosaic.”
Kendra looked down. There were hundreds of apes, including dozens of powerful gorillas. “Maybe it was a good thing you didn’t have all your gear.”
Warren smiled ruefully. “You’re not kidding. Being butchered by monkeys is pretty low on my list of ways to go. Come on.”
They passed through the archway at the other end of the room and began winding down yet another stairwell. All the stairs were real, and at the bottom they found another open archway, narrower than the previous ones.
Warren led the way into a cylindrical room where the floor was hundreds of feet below. Widely spaced sunstones provided sufficient light. A narrow catwalk without railings ringed the top of the room, level with the entrance. The roof bristled with barbed spikes. Kendra saw no way to descend — the walls were smooth and sheer all the way to the bottom, where she could barely make out something in the center of the floor.
“I’m not sure we brought enough rope,” Warren joked, stepping onto the catwalk. “I believe this is our destination. How are you with heights?”
“Not so good,” Kendra said.
“Wait here,” he said. He walked along the catwalk, testing the air with the key, as if searching for an invisible stairway. Kendra noticed an alcove in the far side of the wide room. When Warren reached the alcove, he removed something from it. He levitated a few feet into the air, glanced up at the spikes above him, and floated back down.
“I think I get it,” he called. He reached into the alcove again and there was a bright flash that flung him backwards off the catwalk. Kendra watched breathlessly as Warren plummeted toward the distant floor. He began falling slower, then stopped, then started rising. He floated slowly as he drew even with Kendra, and finally stopped, hovering in the center of the room.
In addition to the key, Warren was holding a short white rod. “I can’t move side to side,” he explained. He floated up close to the spikes, carefully took hold of one, and pushed off, sending himself drifting toward Kendra, moving much the way Kendra pictured astronauts would in zero gravity.
Warren alighted on the catwalk beside her. The short rod was carv
ed out of ivory. One tip was black. He had been holding the rod parallel to the floor, but now that he stood on the catwalk, he tilted it so the black tip was facing up.
“That makes you fly?” Kendra asked.
“More like it reverses gravity,” he said. “Black tip up, gravity pulls down. Black tip down, gravity pulls up. Sideways, you get zero gravity. Tilt the black tip up a little bit, gravity pulls down a little bit. Get it?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Careful of the roof,” he warned.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.
“Never,” he said. “You learn to experiment in places like this.”
He held out the rod. She took it. “I want to try it out in the stairway, without the spikes.”
“Go for it,” he said.
Kendra went back to the stairway. Slowly she tipped the rod until it was sideways. Nothing felt any different. She jumped slightly, and it felt perfectly normal.
“I don’t think it works out here,” she said.
“The enchantment must be specific to this room,” he said. “Still, strong spell, I’ve never heard of anything like it. Remember, with the rod, you’re changing which way gravity pulls you. If your momentum is going one way, turning the rod won’t instantly change your direction. When I was falling and I flipped it over, I slowed, stopped, and then started going up. So leave yourself room to stop, or you might end up a shish kebab.”
“I’m not going to let myself go fast,” Kendra said.
“Good idea,” Warren said. “And, for the record, don’t try to grab a second rod. It felt like I’d been struck by lightning.”
Holding the rod, Kendra followed Warren around the catwalk. She kept the black tip pointed straight up, not wanting to risk drifting up to the spikes. When they reached the alcove, she saw that there were nine other rods, each resting in a hole, black tip up.
“What do you say we make sure we can’t be followed,” Warren said, grabbing a rod and tossing it off the edge of the catwalk. Instead of falling, the rod floated back to the same hole from which Warren had removed it. He picked up the rod again. When he let go of it, the rod again returned itself to the hole.
“We better hold tight to these, or we’ll end up stranded down there,” Kendra said.
Warren nodded, removing a rod for himself. He turned it so the black tip was only slightly upwards and stepped off the edge, falling gently, again making Kendra think of astronauts.
Kendra tipped the rod slowly, marveling as she felt the pull of gravity diminishing, even without moving. The sensation was strange; it reminded her of being underwater. Tilting the rod so the black tip was slightly downward, she floated up, her feet leaving the catwalk. Tipping the rod the other way a tad, she drifted back down.
Now that she trusted the rod, Kendra stepped off the edge of the catwalk and began a mild freefall. The sensation was incredible. She had dreamed of going into space in order to experience zero gravity, and here she was, in an underground tower, sampling something much like it. The dizzying drop beneath her feet was no longer very intimidating, now that she could control gravity with a twist of her wrist.
Warren rose to meet her. “Experiment with the rod,” he said. “Nothing too drastic, but get a feel for how to rise and fall and stop yourself. There’s a knack to it. I have a feeling it will come in handy before we finish here.”
Suddenly Warren shot downward. Kendra watched him slow to a stop. “I thought you said nothing too drastic,” she called to him.
He rocketed upwards, drawing even with her again. “I meant for you,” he said before plunging away below her.
Little by little, Kendra tilted the black tip up higher, incrementally increasing the rate of her descent. She abruptly tipped the rod in the other direction, and her descent slowed with a feeling like she was connected to an elastic band. Making the rod parallel with the ground, she brought herself to a standstill about halfway to the floor.
Kendra glanced up at the distant spikes in the ceiling. She tilted the black tip all the way down, and with a sudden rush of acceleration she was shooting up toward the iron stalactites. The sensation was disorienting, exactly like falling headfirst toward the ground, and the spikes came rapidly nearer. In a panic she whipped the rod the other way. The elastic feeling was much stronger this time, although it took long enough to slow that she got much nearer to the spikes than she liked. Before she knew it she was careening toward the floor of the tall chamber. Her body began rotating, and she lost some sense of which way she needed to turn the rod to slow her fall. She overcorrected several times before gaining control, whipping herself up and down erratically.
When she finally leveled out, Kendra was two-thirds of the way to the floor, hovering near the wall. She kicked off gently.
“And I thought I was a daredevil,” Warren called.
“That was a little more daring than I intended,” Kendra admitted, trying not to sound as shaken as she felt. She experimented more with rising and falling, growing accustomed to easing herself to a stop and to keeping her body properly oriented. At last she landed softly on the floor next to Warren and normalized the gravity by holding her rod black-end up.
The room was bare except for a pedestal at the center. The floor was polished, seamless stone. Atop the pedestal sat a life-sized likeness of a black cat, made of colored glass.
“Is that the artifact?” Kendra asked.
“My guess is we’re looking at the vault,” Warren said.
“Do we smash it?” Kendra asked.
“That might be a start,” Warren said.
“How are you feeling?” Kendra asked.
“Stabbed,” he said. “But functional. Things could turn ugly fast. If it comes to it, you may want to fly up to the catwalk and hope for mercy from the narcoblix. But don’t try to exit the tower. I was very serious about the traps set to prevent anyone from exiting prematurely.”
“Right,” Kendra said. “I won’t ditch you.”
Warren tipped the rod somewhat and jumped, soaring over Kendra’s head and landing gently behind her, wincing slightly and clutching his side. “See, you can also simply reduce gravity to your advantage. Could come in handy.”
Kendra tilted the rod, feeling herself lightening, and took a leap, gliding in a long, lazy parabola. “Gotcha.”
“You ready?” Warren said.
“What’s going to happen?” Kendra said.
“I’ll smash the cat and we’ll see.”
“What if the roof comes down on us?” she asked.
Warren gazed up at the distant ceiling. “That would be bad. Let’s hope the spikes are just meant to impale people who are clumsy with their gravity sticks.”
“You think there may be something scary inside the cat?” Kendra asked.
“Seems like a safe bet. We better hurry. Who knows how long before the narcoblix shows up? You ready? Glove on?”
Kendra pulled on the glove and turned invisible. “Okay.”
Warren prodded the cat with the sharp end of the key. The tip of the spearhead clinked loudly, but the figurine did not crack. He jabbed it a few times. Clink, clink, clink. “I’m not sure we’re meant to break it,” he said. Moving close, Warren touched the cat with his finger and then skipped away, key ready.
The glass cat shimmered and became a real cat, mewing softly. It had a tiny key around its neck.
Kendra felt some of the tension leave her. “Is this some kind of joke?” she asked.
“If so, I don’t think we’ve seen the punch line yet.”
“Maybe it has rabies,” Kendra said.
Tentatively, Warren approached the black cat. It hopped down from the pedestal and slunk toward him. Nothing indicated that the feline was anything other than a scrawny domestic cat. Crouching, Warren let the animal lick his hand. He stroked the cat softly, and then untied the ribbon that held the key. Instantly the cat hissed and swiped a paw at him. Warren stood and backed away, puzzling over the key. The cat arched i
ts back and showed its teeth.
“It turned mean,” Kendra said.
“It is mean,” Warren corrected. “This is certainly no mere housecat. We have not yet seen the true form of our adversary.”
The feral cat spat and hissed.
Warren began investigating the big key. He rolled it, examining it from end to end. “Ah-ha!” he said, inserting the tiny key into a hole just below the spearhead. When he turned the miniscule key, the handle at the opposite end of the big key detached and clattered to the ground. Connected to the handle was a long, slender blade. A sword had been hidden in the shaft of the tall key, with only the handle showing!
Warren picked up the sword, swishing it through the air. The handle had no guard. The sharp blade was long and sleek, and it flashed dangerously in the glow of the sunstones. “We have ourselves a pair of weapons,” Warren said. “Take the spear! Without the sword it has a better balance.”
Eyes on the cat, Kendra drew near and took the spear from Warren. “How do I use this?” she asked.
“Stab with it,” Warren said. “It’s probably too heavy for you to throw it effectively. Pay more attention to soaring away if trouble comes near.”
“All right,” she said, taking a few practice jabs.
Without warning, the cat charged at Kendra. She swung the spear and it veered away, darting toward Warren. His sword whisked down and lopped off the head of the cat. Warren stepped away from the corpse, watching it intently. Both the head and the body of the feline began to boil as if full of writhing worms. The head melted into a soupy pool. The headless body began to heave inside out, revealing wet glimpses of muscle and bone, until the churning finally stopped and the black cat was whole again.
The cat hissed at Warren, fur rising along its arched back. It was bigger now, larger than any domestic cat Kendra had ever seen. Warren took a step toward the cat and it bolted, body stretching long as it raced fluidly away. The next two times Warren came close, the cat streaked away, in the end returning to the pedestal.
[Fablehaven 02] - Rise of the Evening Star Page 30