by Unknown
WHUMPH!
With a bone-shuddering jolt, the basket came to a halt. Pop Fizz found himself tumbling head over heels. He didn’t open his eyes again until he’d come to a halt.
Yes!
They hadn’t crashed. Well, not into the walls at least. The basket had plowed into the strip of rocky ground that surrounded Tempest Towers. They were battered and bruised, but still in the land of the living.
“Ooga booga!”
Pop Fizz spun around to see Double Trouble beside him, eyes wide open with surprise.
“Double Trouble, you’re out of your trance! Good to have you back, buddy!”
Double Trouble looked around at the chaos surrounding them. “Booga ooga?”
“Don’t worry,” Pop Fizz sniggered, brushing himself down. “You didn’t miss anything . . . much.”
Meanwhile, in the gatehouse of Tempest Towers, two cyclops guards were playing Skystones. They should, of course, have been watching the gates, but there didn’t seem much point. After all, no one ever visited Tempest Towers. If the prospect of crossing the Sea of Storms didn’t put people off, the smell definitely did.
It’s a sad fact that cyclopses are the smelliest creatures in all of Skylands. Just one sniff of a cyclops can turn your stomach. The reek of an entire city of the things is enough to make sure you’ll never want to eat again.
Cyclopses, however, are blissfully unaware of their own foul odor, as they are born without noses.
Of course, the guards of the gatehouse didn’t mind the lack of visitors. The fact that no one had knocked on their gates for more than a decade meant that they had become exceptionally good at Skystones.
“Ha!” shouted the first guard, a cyclops by the name of Quick Draw who wore his hair in a spiky Mohawk. “Level-three Bonecrusher! I win!”
“Not again,” sighed his opponent, a chubby cyclops known as Slow Hand. “Best out of five thousand?”
A loud bang echoed around the gatehouse.
Slow Hand dropped his Skystones. “What was that?”
“I have no idea,” replied Quick Draw.
Another bang rattled the glass in the gatehouse windows.
“It sounds like someone banging on the gate,” Slow Hand said in amazement.
“Never!” said Quick Draw.
The two cyclopses ran to the windows. Throwing them open, they peered down to see four strangers standing in front of the gates. The largest, a big, hulking blue fellow, was about to smash his fist into the wood once again.
“What d’ya want?” shouted Quick Draw. The strangers looked up and the blue one broke into a dazzling smile.
“Greetings!” he boomed. “We wish to enter your fine city.”
Quick Draw and Slow Hand exchanged confused glances.
“Why?” Slow Hand asked.
“Because we desire an audience with your gracious queen.”
“And why would she want to see you?” asked Quick Draw.
The blue one laughed, as if he’d never been asked such a thing.
“Why? Because I’m Lightning Rod, of course.”
“Who?”
“Lightning Rod. Champion of the Cloud Kingdom. Master of lightning. Winner of the mightiest beard ten years running. You have heard of me, yes?”
“No,” replied Slow Hand.
Lightning Rod put his hands on his hips, looking more than a little peeved. “But I’m a Storm Titan. And a Skylander, too.”
“Oooooh, a Storm Titan,” repeated Quick Draw.
“And a Skylander,” added Slow Hand, much to the stranger’s obvious delight. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“So you’ll let us in then?”
“No,” snapped Slow Hand.
“No?”
“Storm Titans are two-a-penny,” said Quick Draw. “And as for Skylanders? Well, there are dozens of you, aren’t there?”
“But . . .”
“No buts. The queen only lets unique specimens through her gates. Creatures she’s never seen before.”
“Look, you one-eyed dolt, all we require is . . .”
The cyclopses didn’t let Lightning Rod finish.
“Go away!” they shouted in unison, slamming their windows shut.
“Well, that’s never happened before,” said Lightning Rod, utterly mystified.
“So what now?” asked Pop Fizz.
“Observation: It takes one bottle of potion to transform you into your beast form, correct?” inquired Drobot.
“Sure does,” said Pop Fizz, whipping a bottle out of his satchel.
“What would happen if you drank fifty bottles?”
“Fifty?” Rod spluttered. “Have you gone mad?”
“Do it,” Drobot commanded. “Flynn, gather the ropes from the balloon.”
The alchemist didn’t wait to be asked twice. He started knocking back bottles two at a time, immediately transforming into his hairy form.
“Booga mooga dooga,” exclaimed Double Trouble, suddenly realizing what Drobot was planning.
“Right—use the ropes to get him under control, and let’s try those gates again,” insisted Drobot.
“What now?” yelled Slow Hand, swinging open the window. “I’m trying to win a—”
The sight below made him stop midsentence.
“Quick Draw, come and look at this.”
His Mohawked companion joined him at the window.
“No way!”
“Yes way!” yelled up one of the strangers from below, the one who looked like an armored dragon. “I can guarantee that your queen has never seen a creature like this before.”
The crazed beast was snarling and leaping about, almost pulling the Storm Titan off his cloud.
“He might be right,” commented Quick Draw. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Shall we let them in then?”
“Well, if we do, we can get back to our game. Unless you’re scared I’ll win again?”
The giant gates of Tempest Towers swung open.
“Success!” exclaimed Drobot.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” babbled the hyperactive beast that used to be Pop Fizz. “Success, success, success.”
“So let me get this straight” said Flynn. “You take the furball to see the queen, and then what? Try to steal this Land Whale thingy when she’s not looking?”
“Indeed,” Lightning Rod said, straining to keep Pop Fizz on his leash. “A simple task, I am sure.”
“You two stay here and keep a lookout for Kaos,” added Drobot, gesturing to Flynn and Double Trouble as he stepped across the threshold to the castle. “He can’t be far behind.”
“Is he?” Flynn asked Double Trouble, but the spell-caster just shrugged.
“Booga weh!”
“And I’ve got no idea what you just said.”
“He said that his link to our nemesis has been lost,” explained Rod. “Double Trouble’s double detonated as soon as he came out of his trance. We no longer have a spy on the Drow craft.”
“You got all that from ‘booga weh’?”
“Double Trouble is a tiki-man of few words,” Lightning Rod said, smiling at his friend. His expression darkened. “But now we must make haste. We have no time to lose.”
“But what do I do when baldy gets here?” asked an increasingly worried-looking Flynn.
“Just stop him,” grunted Lightning Rod, dragging the demented Pop Fizz through the already closing gates.
The doors clanged shut.
“ Just stop him,” repeated Flynn, anxiously watching the skies. “ Just stop a crazy Portal Master and his ship full of heavily armored Drow.”
The pilot turned to Double Trouble and was dismayed to see the tiki-man had started to perform a jaunty war-dance to prepare himself for battle.
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“No problem at all,” Flynn whimpered.
Chapter Nine
The Cyclops Queen
By the time Lightning Rod had dragged the snarling alchemist through the streets of Tempest Towers, a crowd of cyclopses had gathered to see the new arrivals.
“Where are we going, dragon?” the Storm Titan whispered to Drobot.
The dragon pointed toward the tower that rose into the sky from the center of the city.
“That tower is the largest building. Logic dictates that it must be the most important. Plus, the king and queen are sitting in front of its gates.”
Sure enough, two thrones were set in front of the doors of the tower, although it had to be said that the king wasn’t exactly an impressive sight. A single, watery eye peered out from beneath his massive crown, and the ruler was so tiny that his feet didn’t even reach the floor.
The queen, however, was something else.
She was possibly the most hideous creature Rod had ever seen, as wide as her husband was small, with coarse hair erupting from her chin. Yellow, jagged teeth jutted along slack jaws and her bloodshot eyes—all three of them—boggled at Pop Fizz. Rod had to admit that having three eyes was certainly unusual. True to their name, most cyclopses had just one eye, although two-eyed examples weren’t unheard of. But three? Perhaps that’s why she was so fascinated by unique life-forms; she was pretty unique herself.
“What a wonderful specimen!” she slobbered, clapping her horrible hands together.
“Why, thank you, madam,” Rod grinned.
“I think she means Pop Fizz,” pointed out Drobot.
“Oh,” said Rod, disappointed.
“Fantastic,” whined the king, his thin, nasal voice sounding like nails scraping down a blackboard. “Another beast for the menagerie. I can feel my sinuses swelling already.”
“Don’t mind him,” the queen lisped, elbowing her husband so hard his crown slipped over his eye. “He’s allergic to everything. Is this . . . creature . . . a gift for little old me?” The sight of her batting her three sets of gloopy eyelashes made Rod feel queasy.
“Indeed it is,” confirmed Drobot. “We ask for only one thing in return.”
The queen’s hideous eyes narrowed.
“And that is?”
“We wish to see the fabled Land Whale,” Rod announced.
“That will not be possible,” snapped the queen. “No one sees the Land Whale but me.”
“Probably because it makes folks break out in rashes,” muttered the king, scratching one of his puny arms.
“Oh,” said Lightning Rod, winking at Drobot. “If that is the case, we shall leave immediately. Farewell, people of Tempest Towers.”
“Come on, Pop Fizz,” added Drobot. “Time to go.”
Pop Fizz just roared as he was dragged away.
“No, wait,” spluttered the queen. “What about my gift?”
“Let them go, my dumpy darling,” wheezed the king, obviously hoping the Skylanders would shut the door on their way out.
“Don’t be stupid!” snarled the queen, before forcing a truly terrible smile across her broad face. “They are our honored guests.”
Lightning Rod paused, waiting to see if their ploy would work.
“I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to give them just a quick peek,” the queen simpered, squirming in her throne. “The Land Whale is very pretty after all.”
Lightning Rod grinned at Drobot. They were in.
Lightning Rod’s smile faltered as soon as the queen led them through her menagerie. The place was as disgusting as the queen herself.
Hundreds of creatures were crammed into the cramped cages that lined the walls of the tower. There were sad-looking unicorns and bearded snakes, warty Chompies, and a winged rhino. A pair of scaled gorillas cowered behind bars while bored pig-fish swam in aquariums filled with mud. Somewhere, a werewolf howled pitifully, while, in the corner of a rusty cage, a snail the size of a cow sobbed into its own shell.
It was obvious that the queen didn’t look after the animals in her zoo. She couldn’t even name half the species. All she seemed to care about was that they were hers and no one else’s. She stomped ahead, crowing about how secure the place was, how no one could break in, how it was built from the strongest, heaviest stone in all of Skylands.
The king, meanwhile, trailed behind his wife, Pop Fizz’s leash in his hand, looking as dejected as the creatures in the cages. Every step brought another royal sneeze, cough, or hack. He really was allergic to everything.
“I have never seen such a fine collection,” Rod lied, struggling to keep up the pretense. All he wanted to do was fling open the cages and let the animals escape. “You must be very proud.”
“Oh, I am,” gushed the queen, as they drew near a large tanklike room. “But nothing compares to the jewel in my little zoo’s crown.”
“You mean the Land Whale?” asked Drobot. “Is it as impressive as the stories say?”
“See for yourself.” The queen threw a lever. In front of them, a heavy portcullis squealed as it rose into the ceiling. “Behold, the last of the Land Whales.”
She stepped aside, letting Lightning Rod and Drobot walk into the whale’s tank. The Skylanders’ mouths dropped open. The Land Whale was big. Really big. It was roughly the size of four Sky-elephants standing side by side—with another four standing on their shoulders.
“How are we going to get it out of this tower?” Drobot hissed quietly. “Are we sure it’s even the segment?”
Lightning Rod reached into his belt, drawing out the scrap of paper from the Book of Power.
“The parchment is glowing, so it must be true,” he whispered. “But how do we sneak it past the queen?” Unfortunately, whispering quietly never was Lightning Rod’s strong point.
“I knew it!” came a burbling shout from behind them. “I knew you were trying to steal the whale from me! Well, this is how we deal with thieves around here!”
Before the Skylanders could react, the Cyclops Queen yanked back on the lever and the heavy iron portcullis came crashing back down, trapping both Lightning Rod and Drobot inside the tank.
Rod rushed forward and tried to lift the barrier, but it was too heavy, even for him.
“I’d save your strength if I were you,” the king sniffed, looking as bored as his wife was angry. “No one can lift that thing. You’re basically doomed.”
“Pah!” boomed Lightning Rod. “It may be heavy, but we can still have a blast, right Drobot?”
“Affirmative,” the dragon replied, his eye lasers powering up. Standing side by side, the two Skylanders threw everything they had at the gates, lightning bolts and laser blasts sizzling in the cold air of the tower.
Yet, when the smoke cleared, the gates were still there.
“You’ll never escape,” crowed the queen. “That’s magically reinforced iron—as indestructible as it is heavy. You’re trapped, and it serves you right for trying to steal my whale, you fools! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to find your ugly little gift a new home.”
“Who you calling little?” snarled Pop Fizz, st
ruggling against the ropes from the balloon. “You wait till I get free of these ropes . . .”
“SIIIIILENCE!” the queen bellowed into Pop Fizz’s face.
“Whoa!” Pop Fizz choked, stunned for a second by the reek of her breath. “Someone needs to floss!”
Before he could continue, cyclopses ran from every corner and threw a glittering net over the berserker.
“Think this can hold me?” yelled Pop Fizz, tearing at the net.
“Actually, it probably can,” snorted the king. “Those ropes are woven from bewitched spider-mage webbing. The more you struggle—”
“The more it tightens!” the queen bellowed, her revolting chin wobbling with laughter. “It’s a
mazing what you can find in my menagerie.”
Sure enough, Pop Fizz crashed to the floor, completely entangled in the net’s enchanted embrace. The cyclopses began rolling him away, carefully avoiding his snapping teeth.
“Let us leave these two to their fate!” the queen cackled, flouncing after them. The permanently snotty Cyclops King shrugged at the Skylanders.
“It’s not all bad, fellas,” he wheezed. “At least the Land Whale hasn’t woken up . . .”
“What do you mean?” asked Lightning Rod. “Would that be bad?”
“It depends.”
“On what?” queried Drobot.
“On whether you think being eaten alive by a giant whale is bad.”
With that, the king scurried after his awful wife. “Wait for me, my stout sweet.”
Behind the Skylanders, something groaned.
Something big.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Rod.
The sound of huge, gummy lips slapping together filled the tank.
The two Skylanders slowly turned around.
The Land Whale had woken up and was glaring at them with eyes the size of doors. Hungry doors.
“Do not fear,” droned Drobot nervously. “All evidence suggests the whale is too heavy to move. It will never be able to get to us.”
Rod didn’t answer. Drobot glanced at his friend and his dragon heart sank. The Storm Titan’s face was emotionless, his eyes glassy. Worst of all, he was slowly stumbling toward the Land Whale.
“What are you doing?” Drobot gasped, but Rod didn’t answer. Suddenly it all made sense: The reason the Land Whale had grown so big was that it didn’t have to move to catch its food. Its eyes were hypnotic. Its food came to it.
Completely under the creature’s thrall, Lightning Rod trudged ever closer to the whale’s opening mouth.
Chapter Ten
Kaos’s Great Floating Head
Outside the city gates, Flynn and Double Trouble watched as Kaos’s zeppelin soared toward Tempest Towers.