Keys to the Demon Prison

by Brandon Mull

Page 7

  Holding her breath, Kendra stared after Berrigan. He disappeared around a corner in the side shaft. The water felt cool now. Vincent swam into the overturned canoe. Trask motioned for Kendra to follow.

  Her head came up in the enclosed space beside Vincent, who was panting. The air smelled like wet wood. "This is our only air pocket," Vincent complained. "Not a bit outside. There must be holes somewhere, in the corners or something, maybe so small we can't see them. " He paused as if an afterthought had occurred to him. "Or maybe the place is simply unnatural. " He gave a thin chuckle. "I guess now would be a bad time to mention that drowning has always been my greatest fear. "

  "It was never a goal of mine," Kendra said, trying to stay brave.

  Seth surfaced inside the canoe. The others surfaced as well.

  "No sign of Berrigan," Mara said. "I'm going after him. There's a chance this little tunnel leads to a way out. "

  "Go," Trask agreed. Mara dove into the side shaft.

  Trask looked from Kendra to Seth. "Unless they return reporting a dead end, once the air goes stale, we'll follow. "

  Vincent had his eyes squinted shut, his lips moving soundlessly. Kendra trembled. There were too many heads inside the little air pocket under the canoe. The air would soon go bad. What would drowning feel like? Would she pass out before she inhaled water? Would inhaling liquid instead of air provide any consolation, any illusion of breathing? She didn't want to know. She tried not to think about it.

  "What a way to go," Seth mumbled.

  "We're not dead yet," Tanu said.

  Kendra ducked under the water and stared into the shaft. Mara was already out of sight. Kendra stayed down, watching hopefully. Mara shot back into view, returning swiftly. The water level began to drop! Kendra screamed with joy, the sound distorted in the water, bubbles rising from her lips. Mara hurried forward. Kendra glimpsed Berrigan behind her. Then the water was dropping fast enough that the side shaft passed out of sight.

  Kendra surfaced. Trask and Tanu righted the canoe, and everyone grabbed hold. Mara dropped from the shaft, entering the water with her toes pointed and without hitting anybody. A moment later, Berrigan hit the water the same way, plunging through a tight slot between Vincent and Trask. Soon Mara and Berrigan clutched the canoe as well.

  "There was a keyhole at the end of the tunnel," Berrigan said, holding up a smaller iron egg. "This place was designed by very cruel people. "

  The canoe dropped out of the shaft, and the water level continued to fall rapidly. Despite her excitement, Kendra's teeth began to chatter. The water was becoming truly cold.

  "The water is flowing out faster than it came in," Mara said.

  "Just what I need," Vincent griped, "to get sucked down a giant drain. "

  Kendra watched the walls, hoping a new tunnel would come into view. The water level kept plummeting.

  "The water's getting really cold," Seth said.

  "Too cold," Trask agreed. "Something is wrong. "

  "It's going to freeze," Mara predicted.

  Trask heaved Kendra into the canoe. Tanu boosted Seth. Berrigan dropped the key inside.

  "To the island," Trask ordered.

  The island did not yet exist. The water level was still too high. Kendra watched as the others frantically stroked toward the center of the room. As the tip of the island came into view, a fragile skin of ice formed on the surface of the water. Tearing through the film of ice, Mara reached the island first, followed by Berrigan. The water level continued to drop, revealing more of the island. Elise scrambled onto the slick, black rock. Trask and Tanu followed, their bodies crashing through the thickening crust of ice until they lunged out of the freezing water.

  As the surface became solid, the water level stopped dropping. The ice pinned Vincent. His head, shoulders, and arms stuck out of the frozen surface just a couple of yards shy of the island. As he tried to boost himself up, chuckling and gasping, the ice around him shattered. He disappeared completely under the water, and before he came up, the surface had refrozen.

  Below Kendra, the canoe cracked, squeezed by the swelling ice. Mara sprawled forward onto the ice, over the place where Vincent had gone under, hatchet in hand, Berrigan gripping her ankles. The ice held her without cracking. She hacked at the surface, chopping chips of ice free.

  After a moment she paused. Moving to one side, she wiped away stray wedges of ice and stared down. "It keeps freezing deeper and deeper," she reported. "Vincent is panicking. He keeps pushing off the ice to avoid getting trapped, which is driving him farther from the surface. There must be more than four feet of ice between us already. I can barely see him. Now I can't. "

  Kendra and Seth climbed out of the canoe onto the solid ice. Tanu, Trask, Berrigan, and Elise joined Mara in attacking the ice, using knives and swords. Seth drew his sword and chiseled at the ice as well.

  Kendra had lost her sword. As the others diligently burrowed, she monitored their pathetic progress in shock, trying not to dwell upon the unseen tragedy happening below her feet. Was Vincent already encased in ice, trapped motionless? Was he conscious? Was he frantically diving deeper, seeking to escape the inevitable as his breath ran out? Were they even digging in the right spot? After passing out of sight, he could have moved off in any direction.

  "This is like trying to dig through concrete," Seth growled in frustration.

  "The ice seems unnaturally hard," Mara grunted, swinging the hatchet with urgent determination.

  Kendra sank to her knees, feeling the cold of the ice through her wet pants. Minutes passed. Kendra shivered. Did the others really believe they would rescue Vincent? He was gone. Hopelessly gone. It wasn't fair, or nice, but it was true.

  Scanning the room, Kendra noticed a new passage where one had not existed before. Despite the tragedy, all she could think was that they had to hurry and move on before Torina and the zombies showed up and Vincent's sacrifice was wasted. She felt numbly detached, watching the others scrape up ice shavings. With hysteria gnawing at her numbness, she wanted to stay detached.

  At last Trask stood. They had barely carved their way two feet down. "Rescuing Vincent is a lost cause," he sighed.

  "A new tunnel has opened," Elise said softly.

  "We had better move on," Trask advised reluctantly. "None of us would want the mission to fail in a vain attempt to retrieve our corpse. "

  "I should have moved faster," Mara hissed, still chopping with her hatchet, eyes fixed on the slowly growing crater in the ice. "He was above the ice. He had almost made it. If I had reached for him an instant sooner--"

  "You may well have plunged through the ice with him," Trask finished. "It happened too quickly and caught all of us off balance. I should have boosted him into the canoe with Kendra and Seth. "

  "Which might have swamped the canoe," Tanu said. "We could have lost all three. "

  "If we're not going to dig, we need to get going," Elise warned. "This trap cost us a lot of time. "

  "She has a point," Berrigan agreed, looking around as if he mistrusted the walls and ceiling. "This is a deadly place. The sooner we move on, the better. "

  Tanu hustled over to the canoe and retrieved the key. Peeling her wet pants away from the hard ice, Kendra arose and crossed the room with the others to the new passage. Her soaked clothes shifted and clung as she moved. Tiny bumps erupted on her skin.

  The air in the passage felt warmer than the air in the icy room. Trask led the way, crossbow in one hand, sword in the other. The passage narrowed until they had to proceed once again in single file. Kendra clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

  The passage was rarely level, sloping up or down. After they had advanced for some distance, the corridor forked. Trask called a halt.

  "This could be trouble," Elise said from the back.

  "What do we do?" Trask ask
ed.

  "Experiment," Mara answered.

  "Anybody have a sense of which turn to make?" Trask asked.

  "Not yet," Mara said. She was studying the walls and peering down the corridors.

  "Then I'll choose the right," Trask said, leading them forward. The passage wound until they reached a dead end. When they returned down the passage, they met with a second dead end. Doubling back, they paused at a wider area where the passage diverged in three directions.

  "This is going to be bad," Elise moaned.

  "A magically shifting maze full of branching passageways," Seth muttered. "Not exactly a time saver. "

  "We could get lost in here forever," Berrigan cautioned.

  "I could scout ahead," Mara said. "I could run. "

  "If you found a way through, there might be no way to return to us," Trask warned.

  "Then we should all run," Mara said. "Let me guide us. It may take some trial and error, but I can figure this out. I have a fairly good sense for where we are inside the Dreamstone.

  As I get a feel for these tunnels, I believe I can lead us through. "

  "Any other ideas?" Trask asked.

  "I could leave markers at the intersections," Elise offered.

  Mara shook her head. "That might encourage our pursuers. I certainly won't forget any intersections. Trust me. Staying oriented is my biggest strength. I was born for this. "

  Nobody spoke for a moment. "You take the lead," Trask decided. He faced the others. "Holler if the pace gets too rough. "

  Mara started loping down the center passage. Kendra was glad they were jogging. The exertion helped drive away the chill. They reached a T, and Mara went left. Then they reached three dead ends in a row without turning before arriving at a small room where the corridor branched in five directions. Mara picked a corridor without pause.

  Kendra was happy that all she had to do was follow. She could not imagine how Mara could keep her bearings through these twisting, cramped passageways. The sameness of the smooth walls and floors and ceiling made it almost impossible to distinguish one tortuous corridor from another. As time went on, they continued to reach dead ends and intersections. Every now and then Mara would call back that they were in a hall they had traveled before, or at an intersection they had previously visited. Most of the time, Kendra had no idea whether Mara was correct.

  Eventually, despite how the pace of the jog had flagged somewhat, and even though she was used to regular exercise, Kendra found herself out of breath. She did not want to be the weak link who begged for a slowdown. But from the way the others were panting, she judged she was not the only person running out of gas.

  It was Tanu who finally called for a walk. Nobody complained. Kendra's clothes were now damp from sweat as well as from water. They walked for several minutes before attempting another jog. They hurried back and forth between dead ends, reaching intersections now and again. Trask, Berrigan, and Elise added comments as they recognized features in the passages or positions of the intersections, always deferring to Mara.

  At length, Trask called a break to eat. Kendra sat beside Seth, munching a partly squished sandwich, her back to the cool wall. She wondered how much faster they would move if they could hear their enemies coming.

  "The scary thing in here," Seth said around a mouthful of food, "is that we could lose ground with a wrong turn and run right into the zombies. "

  "We must be ready for that," Trask said. "Let's hope Laura managed to slow them. "

  "Outside the sun is about to set," Mara noted.

  "Then we'll have the wizard joining the chase," Berrigan reminded them.

  "Do you think we're getting close?" Kendra asked Mara.

  "Where the end may lie is hard to judge just yet," she replied. "We've eliminated several routes as dead ends or pointless loops. Time will tell. "

  "Time is what we lack," Elise grumbled.

  "We'll press on as if our lives depended on it," Trask said, "because they do. And countless other lives as well. "

  "You're a good leader," Seth said pensively. "How do you prepare for an adventure like this?"

  Trask huffed. "You can't fully prepare. You do your best to acquire diverse skills. You try to learn from your successes and mistakes over the years. You try to assemble a team with varied talents and expertise. Mostly, you strive to stay calm enough to think clearly even under extreme pressure. You try to use the adrenaline for focus rather than panic. You stay on your toes, ready to improvise. And you hope for the best. "

  They ate in silence until Trask told them it was time to move on. Again Mara jogged in the lead, and again they trotted and walked down endless passages, reversing at numberless dead ends. Mara became increasingly frustrated as it seemed she recognized nearly every intersection they reached.

  Finally, when the latest corridor had led them to an intersection that forked in three directions, Mara brought them to an exasperated halt. Kendra had trouble recognizing most intersections, but she remembered this one.

  "Maybe I was wrong to lead us," Mara apologized. "By my reckoning, all three of these halls will take us into networks of loops and dead ends that will eventually lead us back here. I must have missed something. I don't know how to go forward. "

  Kendra had never seen Mara this unsettled. An idea occurred to her. "Mara, maybe we have to treat this intersection like a dead end and go back down the passage that brought us here. "

  Squinting her eyes shut, Mara rubbed her knuckles against her forehead, a grin spreading across her face. "Of course, of course, that has to be it. I've only experimented with doubling back from dead ends, never at intersections. "