Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow

by James Rollins

  The cellars lay deeper than Jake had expected. Marika passed two landings with doors, but she kept going. The grayish stone grew black around the spiral stairs, possibly scorched by the old fires that had rid the keep of the Skull King.

  “Just up ahead,” Marika said, breathless. She pointed to where the stairs finally ended at a slightly open door.

  She reached it first, knocked loudly, and called, “Magister Zahur! Papa!”

  Jake and Pindor joined her on the landing. The only light came from a pair of iron sconces on either side of the door. Marika’s knocking had pushed the door open wider.

  Jake leaned his head inside and saw that more stairs led down farther still. The glow from the landing’s sconces extended far enough to reveal the common room below. He could make out the dark shapes of a table and chair.

  “Magister Zahur?” Marika called again, sounding less sure.

  Only silence answered her.

  “Maybe they’re back in his deeper cellars,” Pindor said. “I’ve heard it’s a maze down there.”

  Hearing him, Marika moved slowly, but her fear for Livia drove her onward.

  Jake followed at her heels. “Maybe they’ve taken her somewhere else. Maybe up to your place or the Astromicon.”

  Or maybe Livia was already dead.

  As they reached the common room, they heard a ghostly moan. Someone else was down here.

  “Tap the lights,” Marika said.

  Pindor searched along one wall near the stairs. Jake did the same along the other. “Found one,” Pindor said.

  Jake heard a ringing ting as his friend flicked the crystal bulb with his fingernail. It remained dark. Jake’s hand found another wall sconce on his side. He felt for the chunk of crystal, found it, and tapped the bulb.

  Nothing.

  …ting, ting, ting…

  “It’s not working,” Pindor said.

  The scuff of a boot drew Jake’s attention around. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut. The light from the hall was cut off, and a pitch-black darkness fell over them.

  “Hey!” Pindor yelled, bumping into Jake. “We’re down here!”

  Jake grabbed Pindor’s arm. “Be quiet!” A few steps away, Marika squeaked out in fear.

  Pindor tried to shake free of Jake’s grasp. “What’re you—”

  Jake squeezed harder, silencing him.

  Then he heard it again. A faint buzzing—like a thousand bees. Jake recognized that sound. He’d heard it in the middle of the night. A stingtail. One of the flying scorpions. Then over his head, Jake heard an equally familiar scritch-scritch of claws as something crawled along the ceiling. Another one!

  “Marika,” Jake whispered. “Get over here.”

  He pushed Pindor toward the stairs. “Try the door.”

  As Marika crept toward him, more buzzing rose out of the darkness. Jake remembered Zahur’s comment about the missing stingtail that ended up in Jake’s room—how it was one of six.

  The buzzing grew louder and was answered by others in the dark, becoming a deadly chorus.

  Jake jumped as Marika knocked into him.

  “Stingtails,” she whispered in his ear.

  Someone had let all the scorpions loose.

  Pindor called down from the top of the stairs in a frantic whisper. “It’s locked.”

  Jake and Marika backed away from the scratching of claws and buzzing of wings. They had no weapons—and no way out.

  19

  DEATH TRAP

  Marika and Jake backed from the common room and climbed three steps up the cellar stairs. Pindor stumbled down to join them from the locked door. There was no way out that way. Jake remained frozen on the step. He didn’t want to be trapped in the stairwell when the rest of the deadly scorpions came flying out of the dark.

  They needed weapons—and a light.

  Then Jake remembered. He had stashed his penlight in his pants pocket after the disaster up in the Astromicon. He scrambled to unbutton the pocket and ended up ripping it in frustration. The button popped off and went flying across the room.

  Jake pulled out the penlight and flicked the switch. A spear of brilliant light pierced the darkness. Pindor gasped in surprise and almost fell onto his backside.

  Marika clutched Jake’s other arm.

  With the burst of light, all buzzing and scratching halted.

  “We have to find somewhere to hole up,” Jake said. “Somewhere where those stingtails can’t get at us.”

  “Pindor was right about it being a maze down here.” Marika pointed. “There are more rooms beyond this one. If we could make it over there…”

  But that meant first crossing the common room.

  Jake swallowed hard. The penlight only cast out a thin beam. The surrounding darkness looked even blacker now. As he shifted the beam around, shadows jumped and trembled. The light seemed to create more hiding places, not fewer.

  But his light did reveal a closed door directly across from their position. They would have to make a run for it. It was their only chance. Still, what if it was locked? What if beyond it were worse horrors than stingtails? Who knew what else Zahur kept hidden in his cages down here?

  A low moan answered him. Jake had forgotten about hearing the groaning earlier. The noise sounded like it came from behind that same door.

  “Somebody’s here,” Marika whispered.

  But was that good or bad?

  Jake risked stepping off the stairs to the floor. He cast his light all around. He searched the floor, the tabletop, and the roof with its shadowy rafters. A flicker of motion drew his eye to the lights hanging from the ceiling. One of the chains swung and revealed a black mass latched onto it.

  Jake speared the stingtail with his light. As the light struck it, the monster’s wings snapped wide and blurred into motion with a furious buzzing. Its spiked tail curled high. Angered by the light, the stingtail flew off its perch and dove straight at Jake.

  He leaped backward, bowling into Marika and Pindor. The scorpion hit where Jake had been standing—and shattered into a hundred pieces like a broken glass.

  Its poisonous tail skittered and bounced to the foot of the stairs.

  After a stunned moment, Pindor asked, “What happened?”

  Jake reached out and poked the tail with a finger. It felt solid as a rock and cold. He tested it again. The thing was frozen solid, as if dipped in liquid nitrogen. What could’ve done that?

  “Your lightstick!” Marika answered his silent question. Jake’s penlight was shining on a crystal pitcher of flowers on the table. They had been blooming and green, but now they were blackened and covered in frost. The pitcher suddenly exploded and ice tinkled across the tabletop.

  “It’s your lightstick,” Marika insisted. “The bat tree you put inside it! It came out of the Astromicon’s device.”

  Jake remembered placing the battery in the bronze tray and sending it up into the machine—along with a shard of blue crystal, the same crystal that was known for its cooling ability. He’d thought the crystal had been consumed by the machine, but now he understood.

  Red and green make yellow.

  “The battery and the crystal fused into one!” The property of the crystal and the power of the battery had somehow joined together and created a freezing beam of light.

  He started to lift his hand toward the beam to test it, but Marika grabbed his wrist. “No! Don’t!”

  Jake lowered his arm. The darkness hid his blushing embarrassment. What a stupid thing to do! He could’ve frozen his fingers right off his hand. He kept the beam pointed ahead of him. Now they had a weapon—for at least as long as the battery’s power lasted. But who knew how long that would be?

  “Stay behind me,” Jake told Marika and Pindor. “We have to get to that far door.”

  He edged out into the room, sweeping his light right and left. As he neared the table, a scritch-scritch warned him. He danced back as another of the stingtails scuttled out from under a chair, tail high, dripping
poison.

  Jake fixed his light on it. Its scrabbling legs suddenly froze up, but its momentum kept its body sliding across the stone. The poison on the tip of its tail had become an icicle. Jake performed a Tae Kwon Do sweeping kick and sent it flying away.

  Spinning, he searched all around with his flashlight.

  If all five of Zahur’s scorpions had been set free, that left three more running around somewhere—or flying. The next attacks came from the rafters and the top of a cupboard. With a flurry of wings, the monsters dive-bombed from two different directions.

  Jake couldn’t stop both.

  He pointed his light at one and fought to keep his beam on it long enough to freeze it. The blur of wings stopped in mid beat, and it dropped like a heavy stone to the tabletop. Legs broke under it, but its body remained intact, a gruesome centerpiece.

  Jake tried to swing the light around in time to freeze the other attacker, but as he turned, Pindor punched out with a fist and knocked the diving scorpion to the floor. It landed on its back, legs waving and claws clacking. As Pindor stumbled back, Jake lunged forward and used an ax kick to smash his heel through its belly.

  “The door!” Jake said, and waved the others forward. There was still another stingtail out here.

  Marika yanked it open. The room beyond looked like a small infirmary, with a cot, shelves of glass bottles, and a table with rolled bandages, scissors, and jars of thick pastes. The room smelled acrid from whatever medicines were used here.

  Marika screamed.

  Jake immediately saw why. It was the huntress, Livia, sprawled under a thin blanket on the bed. She looked as pale as a ghost. Her skin shone silvery, almost translucent in the feeble light from a tiny lamp at her bedside.

  Atop her chest crouched the last of the scorpions. Its venomous tail arched high, ready to strike. Jake feared pointing the beam of his penlight at the creature. The scatter of the beam might freeze Livia, too.

  “Get back,” Jake whispered, clicking off the flashlight. He slipped between his two friends and crouched low as he took three slow steps toward the bed. He had to get close.

  With their arrival, the stingtail had gone as still as a statue, wary, sizing up the threat. The only thing that moved were its black eyes on tiny stalks. They swiveled all around.

  Jake only needed one more step—but he was too late.

  The tail whipped forward like the head of a striking rattlesnake. It plunged toward Livia’s thin neck. Jake thrust his arm forward and flicked the switch on the penlight. The tip of the flashlight was less than an inch from the spike as it stabbed into the woman’s neck.

  Marika gasped as Jake held steady. The tail yanked out, dripping blood from its spike. The scorpion scuttled backward, trying to escape the icy touch of the beam. But Jake twisted his wrist and shone the beam into its stalky eyes, toward its head. The legs suddenly spasmed and convulsed. Claws tore holes in the blanket. Then with a final tremor it simply collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Jake had turned its brain to ice.

  With a shudder, Jake slapped the creature off the huntress. Marika ran up to him. Pindor crossed over, too, but not before stamping his heel through the stingtail, making sure it stayed dead.

  “It stung her!” Marika moaned.

  Jake thumbed off his penlight and leaned over the woman in the bed. Blood dripped down her neck, but nothing spurted. Jake inspected the wound. The stinger had hit nothing vital. With a bandage, it should heal.

  “The venom will kill her in a matter of breaths,” Marika said.

  Jake watched Livia’s chest rise and fall under the blanket. “Maybe not, Mari. I did the only thing I could. I froze the tip of the tail first. With luck the poison turned to ice and remained trapped in the stinger.”

  Faint hope shone in Marika’s eyes. “We should know in the next few moments.”

  They kept a silent vigil. Jake used the time to press a bundle of cloth gently against the hole in Livia’s neck, but already the blood had slowed its seeping. After a full three minutes, Marika’s eyes shone brighter as she glanced to Jake.

  Livia’s chest continued to rise and fall, weakly, but no more so than before.

  “I think she’s going to make it,” Marika said.

  Ever practical, Pindor dampened her hope. “Maybe she wasn’t poisoned by the stingtail, but those shards of bloodstone are still in her.”

  Confirming this, the huntress let out a low moan. One hand flew up and knocked the lamp off the bedside table. She was suddenly wild, frantic. Her eyelids fluttered open, but there was no sight. Only the whites of her eyes showed.

  “We have to help her! But what do we do?” Marika searched the room, looking lost. “Where’s Magister Zahur? Or even my father and Magister Oswin?”

  Jake shook his head. They’d seen no sign of any of the Magisters. “Maybe they haven’t gotten here yet?”

  A touch of hysteria entered Marika’s voice. “Even if they’d walked, we should have seen them from the chariot.”

  “No, I think they got here,” Pindor said. He was down on his knees, recovering the lamp Livia had knocked over. He pulled a hand from beneath her bed. In his fingers he held a slender stick of wood that looked like a wand. Its crystal tip reflected the lamplight. Jake recognized the wand. Marika’s father had used it to touch the bloodstone arrowhead and banish its evil.

  “Papa’s dowsing wand!” Marika said.

  So her father had been here.

  Marika snatched the wand from Pindor and clutched it to her chest. She turned in a full circle, as if expecting to find her father suddenly standing there. She looked a breath away from full panic.

  Jake tried to calm her. “Just because his stick is here, it doesn’t really tell us what happened. They could have gone anywhere.” He kept himself from adding, “We’ve seen no bodies.”

  “Then who set up this trap? Who locked us in here?” Marika asked.

  “Maybe Zahur,” Pindor said. “Those were his sharp-tailed beasties. And he did call your father. Maybe it was to lure him here, while everyone was at the Olympiad.”

  Marika shook her head, trying not to believe, but she didn’t shake her head too vigorously or scold Pindor for such doubts. Like Jake, she was probably brimming with suspicions. Her fingers still clung to her father’s wand.

  From the room outside, a heavy creak of hinges rasped, like bone scraping on bone. Everyone froze. Someone was coming.

  “Stay here,” Jake hissed.

  He crossed to the door and peered out into the dark room. In the weak light Jake spotted a small side door swinging slowly open. It was a furtive motion, possibly someone checking to see if they were dead.

  Jake slid out into the common room.

  A shadowy shape pushed through a narrow door, like the one in Balam’s common room. What if it was one of the Magisters? Even so, Jake still wouldn’t know what to do. Who could he trust?

  The door opened wider as the intruder stepped into the room. His small form revealed his identity.

  “Bach’uuk,” Jake whispered.

  The Ur boy froze in place. He looked ready to bolt away. Jake could only imagine the boy’s fear at hearing his name whispered out of the dark. Jake flicked on his penlight but kept it pointed at the floor.

  Bach’uuk straightened but remained wary.

  Marika appeared behind Jake. “Bach’uuk!”

  Pindor stood at her shoulder. “Apollo be praised! A way out of this trap!”

  Jake still kept his penlight ready. Who’s to say Bach’uuk can be trusted?

  Marika held no such misgivings. She hurried over and crushed Bach’uuk in a hug. “What are you doing here?”

  Free of her embrace, he shuffled his feet. “I saw someone…a stranger fly up out of the cellars. I come to see if Magister Zahur had any trouble.”

  “He had trouble all right,” Pindor mumbled.

  Marika started to explain, but Jake cut her off. “What did this stranger look like?”

  “He was
made of shadows.”

  “What do you mean?” Marika asked.

  Bach’uuk shuddered from head to foot. “The stranger had no form. Shadows rode his shoulders and flowed behind him like a cloak. Where he passed, the hearthlights died, eaten by his shadows.”

  Jake glanced back to the darkened room. No wonder the crystals refused to glow.

  “I saw only a single gleam.” Bach’uuk touched his throat, as if indicating a clasp on a coat. “It shone only because it was blacker than the shadows that covered him.”

  Jake recognized the description. “Bloodstone.”

  “He ran into the castle where shadows swallowed him up.” Bach’uuk shook his head, indicating he didn’t know where the stranger had gone after that.

  “Did you see my father? Or Magister Oswin?” Marika asked. The worry in her voice rang like a bell.

  Bach’uuk frowned. “Not after this morning.”

  Marika looked stricken.

  “What are we going to do?” Pindor asked. “Who are we going to tell? The Magisters are all gone. Everyone else is off at the Olympiad.”

  A weak moan whispered out of Livia’s throat. It sounded as if it came from far away, as if she were already fading into the distance, crossing where they could not follow.

  “We can’t just leave Livia,” Marika said. “We have to try to save her. Maybe she saw something.”

  Jake knew that was not likely, but he also read the fear for her father in the lines around Marika’s eyes. Jake studied Livia. She would not last another hour. If even that. They had to try something.

  He nodded, more to himself than to the others. “We’ll try to destroy the bloodstone in her.”

  He expected some complaint, but Pindor surprised him. “What do you want us to do?”

  Jake thought quickly. Pindor had longer legs and could run faster than Jake. “Bach’uuk, can you lead Pin up through your back stairs? All the way to the Astromicon? We don’t want anyone to see either of you.”

  Bach’uuk nodded.