The Mask of Power

by Onk Beakman

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Written by Cavan Scott Illustrated by Dani Geremia—Beehive Illustration Agency

  © 2016 ACTIVISION Publishing, Inc. SKYLANDERS UNIVERSE is a trademark and ACTIVISION is a registered trademark of Activision Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-399-54283-1

  Version_1

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  About the Author

  One: Missing

  Two: The Weeping Forest

  Three: Glumshanks’s Story

  Four: Bone Attack!

  Five: Escape!

  Six: The Spotter’s Guide

  Seven: Troll Bastion

  Eight: Into the Breach

  Nine: Cornered!

  Ten: The Battle in the Crater

  Eleven: Tree-Mendous

  Twelve: The Life Segment

  Thirteen: Back to Sleep

  Special Excerpt from ERUPTOR MEETS THE NIGHTMARE KING

  About the Author

  Onk Beakman knew he wanted to be a world-famous author from the moment he was hatched. In fact, the book-loving penguin was so keen that he wrote his first novel while still inside his egg (to this day, nobody is entirely sure where he got the tiny pencil and notebook from).

  Growing up on the icy wastes of Skylands’ Frozen Desert was difficult for a penguin who hated the cold. While his brothers plunged into the freezing waters, Onk could be found with his beak buried in a book and a pen clutched in his flippers.

  Yet his life changed forever when a giant floating head appeared in the skies above the tundra. It was Kaos, attempting to melt the icecaps so he could get his grubby little hands on an ancient weapon buried beneath the snow.

  Onk watched open-beaked as Spyro swept in and sent the evil Portal Master packing. From that day, Onk knew that he must chronicle the Skylanders’ greatest adventures. He traveled the length and breadth of Skylands, collecting every tale he could find about Master Eon’s brave champions.

  Today, Onk writes from a shack on the beautiful sands of Blistering Beach with his two pet sea cucumbers.

  Chapter One

  Missing

  Stump Smash was having a bad day. All the Skylanders were. It was a day they thought would never happen. Could never happen.

  Master Eon had disappeared.

  No, it was more serious than that. Master Eon had been kidnapped—spirited away by agents of Kaos, their archenemy and the wickedest soul Skylands had ever produced. The Skylanders had no idea where Master Eon had been taken. They weren’t even sure how it had happened—although they had some very nasty suspicions.

  As he stomped through the echoing corridors of the Eternal Archive, Stump Smash replayed the events in his mind. The Skylanders had been searching for the eight Elemental fragments of an ancient weapon known as the Mask of Power. They were still a little unsure what the Mask of Power actually did, although legend suggested it could make its wearer all-powerful. Kaos was also searching for the fragments, and had managed to get his evil little hands on the Tech piece already. Fortunately, the Skylanders had beaten him to four of the other fragments, guided by the Book of Power and Other Utterly Terrifying Stuff (Vol. 3).

  The book was held right here in the Eternal Archive. Or, at least, it used to be.

  The book had gone missing, along with Master Eon. Only a Portal Master could read its pages. A Portal Master like Master Eon. Or Kaos.

  At least Kaos hadn’t managed to reach the fragments that the Skylanders had already collected, thought Stump Smash as he strode through the archive’s vast vaults. The Water, Air, Earth, and Undead pieces were safely locked away. Nothing could get them.

  “What do you mean Kaos got to them?” Spyro the dragon spluttered as Stump rounded a corner.

  Spyro was standing openmouthed, staring at a large robotic figure in disbelief. Chief Curator Wiggleworth was a Warrior Librarian, the protector of thousands of powerful books here in the archive. Like all Warrior Librarians, he was an imposing figure, towering over Spyro in a suit of gleaming mechanical armor. At the heart of the suit squirmed Wiggleworth’s true form, a tiny and incredibly old bookworm who was also one of Master Eon’s most trusted friends.

  “I don’t know what’s happened,” Wiggleworth said. “No one should have been able to open the vault except Squirmgrub or me—”

  “Squirmgrub,” rumbled Stump Smash, interrupting the conversation. “The Warrior Librarian you assigned to help us guard the fragments.”

  Wiggleworth’s head drooped.

  Squirmgrub had been one of the curator’s most trusted librarians, until he was revealed to be an agent of Kaos. He had spirited Master Eon away to goodness-knows-where and stolen the fragments of the mask for his dark master.

  “He was a traitor,” Spyro growled. “A double agent.”

  Stump Smash had never seen Spyro look so angry. The purple dragon was many things. Adventurous, yes. Impulsive, definitely. But he always kept his temper in check. Unlike Stump himself.

  This time was different. Spyro’s red eyes were burning with rage.

  “Don’t you see, Wiggleworth?” Spyro said. “This means Kaos now has five of the eight fragments.” The dragon turned toward the open safe. “We should never have stored them here. We should have taken them to Master Eon’s citadel. They would have been protected there.”

  The curator shrugged, his mechanical shoulders whirring. “But Master Eon said . . .”

  “Master Eon is gone,” Spyro snapped, whirling around. “Because of you!”

  Stump Smash raised his mallet-like fists, trying to calm the situation. “Spyro, this isn’t helping . . .”

  The dragon turned on the Life Skylander. “But we let him down, Stump. We let Master Eon get captured.”

  “We didn’t even know he was in danger,” Stump insisted.

  “We should have! We’re Skylanders. We protect Skylands. That’s what we do!”

  “That’s what we were doing,” Stump reminded him. “We were busy, and Kaos struck—but we’ll find Master Eon. I promise.”

  Spyro took a deep breath, his raised scales relaxing slightly. “I know,” he said finally, nodding. “Have we heard from the others?”

  Stump Smash wished he was bringing good news. He shook his trunk. “Lightning Rod and Zoo Lou are searching Fantasm Forest. Scratch and Flashwing are on their way to Molekin Mine.”

  Spyro sighed. “It’s taking us so long now that we can’t use the Portals.”

  “Yes,” muttered Wiggleworth. “Well, we can’t use them without . . .”

  His voice trailed away as Spyro shot him a look. “Without a Portal Master,” the dragon said in a voice that was frostier than an ice-clops’s snow cone. “Yes, we know.”

  Another voice echoed around the chamber. “Spyro, where are you?”

  It was Flameslinger, a Fire Skylander and one of Stump Smash’s oldest friends.


  “Over here, Sling,” the powerful tree called out.

  Flameslinger tore around the corner before skidding to a halt in front of them, a red-hot trail sizzling in his wake. The elf was always on the move, rushing here, there, and everywhere. He wasn’t one for cooling his heels. Behind him, a smaller, short-legged figure struggled to keep up. This was Hugo, Master Eon’s right-hand Mabu. The little fellow was a natural worrier, but he had impressed Stump Smash since Master Eon had vanished. Stump had expected the Mabu to fall to pieces, but Hugo was rising to the challenge, helping coordinate the search for the missing Portal Master.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Hugo said, huffing and puffing as he joined the others. “I mean, another one.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Spyro sighed, sharing a look with Stump Smash.

  “Well, you told us to listen for anything weird,” said Flameslinger. “And this sounds pretty weird to me.”

  “What does?” asked Stump Smash.

  “It’s the Giggling Forest,” Hugo replied, peering over his glasses. “Spyro, it has started to cry.”

  Chapter Two

  The Weeping Forest

  “Okay, run it by me again,” said Flynn. “There’s a forest that laughs?”

  “We’ve explained this twice already,” Flameslinger snapped. He was holding on to the edge of the hot-air balloon’s jiggling basket.

  “Hey, hot stuff,” said Flynn the pilot, grinning and pulling a lever, trying to ignore the fact that it had come off in his hand. “I’ve been kinda busy here, trying not to crash.”

  “That’s a first,” grumbled Flameslinger under his breath.

  Stump Smash understood the elf’s frustration. As soon as Spyro had heard about the Giggling Forest, he had dispatched Stump and Flameslinger to investigate, along with the Tech Skylander Countdown and the Magic Skylander Wrecking Ball. They’d called upon Flynn to transport them to the forest in his hot-air balloon. Flynn was Skylands’ best pilot. They knew this because Flynn was always telling them. He’d pointed it out three times before they’d even taken off, and twice more since nearly smashing the basket into the Eternal Archive’s tallest turret. The Mabu was almost as full of hot air as one of his balloons, but he’d helped them many times over the years. There was a good heart beating in that puffed-up chest.

  “The clue’s in the name, Flynn,” Stump said. “The Giggling Forest giggles. All the time. It has done it for thousands of years.”

  “What’s the joke?” Flynn asked, spinning the wheel to just avoid a school of sky-salmon . . . only to find himself heading straight for a flying whale.

  “No one knows,” Stump replied, stumbling into Wrecking Ball, who had wrapped his tongue around the ropes to stop himself being flung from the basket. “I guess they’re just happy.”

  “Not anymore,” pointed out Countdown. “What’s-his-name said they started crying.”

  “Flameslinger!” The elf laugh, before shrugging at Flynn. “Don’t mind Countdown, he gets forgetful.”

  “Do I?” asked Countdown. “I can’t remember.”

  Wrecking Ball snickered, but couldn’t join in the conversation. He was a little tongue-tied, after all.

  “This isn’t good,” said Countdown. “This isn’t good, at all.”

  They were standing in the middle of a clearing in the Giggling Forest, after making what some would call a bumpy landing. Flynn was calling it awesome, but he was also trying to rebuild the basket that had “accidentally” smashed into the ground. The pilot also claimed that someone must have raised the island by a few yards at the last minute, but the Skylanders were too taken aback by the sound greeting them to argue.

  The trees of the Giggling Forest weren’t just crying. They were wailing.

  “Stump, you better talk to them,” said Wrecking Ball.

  “Why me?” asked Stump Smash.

  “Because you’re a tree?” suggested Flameslinger.

  Stump Smash couldn’t argue with that. He marched forward to the nearest blubbering trunk.

  “Hey, what’s up?” he asked, trying to get the tree’s attention. “Feeling a little blue?”

  The tree stopped sniveling for a second, looked at Stump with watery eyes, and then bawled. “We’re so sad,” it howled, sap streaming from its wooden nose.

  “We kinda noticed,” said Countdown, walking up beside the Life Skylander. “But what’s wrong?”

  “You’d better see for yourselves.” The tree sniffed, waving them farther into the forest with a trembling branch. “It’s awful.”

  The Skylanders cautiously made their way through the teary trees. Flameslinger even slipped a fiery arrow into his bow, just in case. Something dreadful must have happened here.

  And then they found out what.

  “Whoa,” said Wrecking Ball.

  “Unbelievable,” breathed Flameslinger.

  “That’s something even I won’t forget,” said Countdown.

  Stump Smash could see why. A gigantic crater, carved deep into the ground, stretched out in front of them. All around, the trees nearest the blast site were standing still. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t crying. They weren’t making any sound at all.

  Countdown tapped against the trunk of one tree with one of his hand-missiles. The sound wasn’t the dull knock of metal against wood, but the cold, hard sound of metal hitting rock.

  “They’ve been petrified,” the Tech Skylander said, gazing from one statue-like tree to another. “All of them—turned to rock.”

  “And that’s not all,” cried out Wrecking Ball, throwing himself forward. He rolled down the crater and up the other side. “I was right,” he called. “Come and see.”

  The Skylanders rushed across the blackened earth, stopping in amazement when they reached Wrecking Ball.

  Stump Smash’s eyes narrowed and his lip curled into a snarl. “Trolls,” he growled. They were everywhere.

  Stump Smash despised Trolls. Long ago, he had been a normal tree, happy to sleep his days away in the middle of a peaceful glade with his brothers and sisters. But then the Trolls came. They chopped down his forest to use as fuel for their weapons. Not even Stump Smash had escaped unscathed. They’d stripped his branches, leaving him with two giant mallets.

  It was a decision they soon regretted. Stump Smash went on a rampage— smashing the Trolls’ lumberjack equipment, before starting on the Trolls themselves.

  But things were different this time. He didn’t need to smash these Trolls. They weren’t going anywhere. Wrecking Ball rolled over to the nearest Troll and flicked out his tongue.

  “Ugh,” Flameslinger shuddered. “Do you have to lick it?”

  “It’s rock,” Wrecking Ball confirmed. “ Just like the trees.”

  “They all are,” Countdown agreed, checking out a petrified Troll Greasemonkey who was frozen in position, a giant wrench held high above his head. The look on his face was one of sheer terror.

  “These aren’t normal statues,” said Flameslinger, taking a peek from beneath the blindfold he always wore. “They used to be real.”

  “ Just like the trees,” Stump Smash muttered. Even after all this time, he found it hard to feel sorry for a bunch of Trolls. “But how did this happen to them?”

  “Is someone there?” came a voice from deeper inside the stone forest. “Can you help me?”

  “I recognize that voice,” Stump Smash declared, rushing forward and knocking over a petrified Trollverine that shattered into a thousand pieces on the rock-hard ground. “Come on!”

  “Please, somebody help me!”

  “We’re coming,” Stump Smash replied. “But I wouldn’t count your lucky stars just yet.”

  The Skylanders crashed through the trees and found the owner of the voice cowering beneath a stone bush.

  “Glumshanks!” cried Flameslinger, not believing h
is eyes. The lanky Troll sighed, his pointed ears drooping as he realized who had come to his rescue.

  “Oh,” the Troll said quietly. “Skylanders. My day just gets better.”

  Glumshanks had known the Skylanders a very long time—but they were hardly friends. The lanky Troll was Kaos’s butler, sidekick, and all-around toady. He’d helped his master on every last one of his despicable schemes, and—despite being treated horrendously over the years—he stuck by Kaos no matter what.

  “If you’re here,” snarled Stump Smash, “then Kaos can’t be far away!”

  Beside the Life Skylander, Countdown’s bomb-like head was starting to flush scarlet—which was never a good sign. “Yeah, where is the little twerp?”

  Glumshanks shook his head. “Oh no. I’m not going to betray Lord Kaos.”

  Flameslinger pointed a flaming arrow at the Troll. “Then you better start running!”

  “Can’t do that, either, I’m afraid,” Glumshanks answered, crossing his arms across his thin chest.

  “Too scared?” Wrecking Ball said with a grin. “Know that we’d catch you anyway?”

  Glumshanks looked down at his feet, his usual hangdog expression dropping even further. “Not exactly.”

  The Skylanders followed his gaze and their mouths dropped open. Glumshanks’s legs had been transformed into stone.

  Chapter Three

  Glumshanks’s Story

  “What happened here?” growled Stump Smash.

  “I’ve told you,” Glumshanks insisted. “I’m loyal to Lord Kaos.”

  Wrecking Ball sniggered. “Like he’s loyal to you?”

  Glumshanks sniffed. “He’s never let me down yet.”

  “And I thought I was the one with the bad memory,” said Countdown, before nudging Flameslinger in the ribs. “I am the one with the bad memory, right?”

  “Okay, fair’s fair,” said Stump Smash. “I suppose we better get you free.”