“So far so good,” he said, but he looked exhausted.
Twin roars resounded through the towering room. The panther, much larger now than any horse, had sprouted a second head. The doubly fierce creature had no snakes or other oddities. It paced beneath them with feral intensity.
“You want to bait or throw?” Vanessa asked.
“I’d better bait,” he said, giving her the spear and taking the sword.
Warren went lower, but not much lower. The panther was no longer cowering behind the pedestal; it paced in the open, as if daring them to come closer. Warren still looked to be well out of reach when the panther sprang and from gaping mouths expelled a spray of black sludge. The two-headed panther had not come up directly below Warren, and so the spray came at him diagonally, spattering his chest and legs.
Instantly Warren was screaming. Tendrils of smoke steamed up from where the volatile substance clung to him. He dropped the sword and brushed frantically at the searing sludge. Thrashing and groaning, Warren rose ever higher until he reached the spikes in the roof and used them to make his way to the catwalk, where he collapsed.
Vanessa and Kendra followed Warren and knelt on the catwalk beside him. His body was charred wherever the sludge had splattered. “Acid, or something,” he muttered feverishly, eyes wild.
Vanessa cut open his pant leg. The flesh around the snakebite was swollen and discolored.
“We can’t get him out of here?” Kendra asked Vanessa.
“The tower will not let us leave without the artifact,” Vanessa said. “A safeguard to protect its secrets.”
“Can any traps be worse than that thing?” Kendra asked.
“Yes,” Vanessa said. “The traps that prevent a premature exit will be rigged to cause certain death. The guardian can be defeated; the traps probably cannot. Hand over the potion pouch. Warren is dying. Blind luck is better than none.” Vanessa began considering various bottles, uncapping a few to sniff them. Below, the panther heads roared.
“No potions,” Warren gasped. “Give me the spear.”
Vanessa gave him a sidelong glance. “You’re in no condition—”
“The spear,” he said, sitting up.
“This might buy you time,” Vanessa said, holding up a bottle. “I think I recognize the potion. It has a distinctive odor. It will transform your body to a gaseous state. During that time, poison will not spread, acid will not burn, and blood will not flow.”
Vanessa held it out to him.
Lips twisting into a grimace, Warren shook his head.
Vanessa held out the spear.
Snatching it, Warren rolled off the edge of the catwalk. He was controlling his fall with the rod, but descending rapidly. Warren yelled — a primal, barbaric challenge. The two-headed panther snarled up at him. Warren cried out again, directly above the feline monstrosity. The monster reared up to meet him, jaws agape.
Holding the spear poised, Warren let himself fall at full speed the final thirty feet, and so it was with tremendous force that he plunged the spear between the two necks an instant before striking the unyielding floor. With more than half the length of the spear buried in its body, the mighty beast took a few drunken steps, wobbled, leaned, and slumped to the floor.
Kendra grabbed the bottle from Vanessa and dove off the catwalk. She kept full gravity, and an incredible rush of wind washed over her as she plummeted downward. She whipped the rod around, and her fall began to slow, and then she brought the rod level, coming to a perfect stop beside Warren.
Warren was a wreck, facedown, unconscious, breathing shallowly. Heaving with both hands, Kendra rolled him over, wincing as something inside of him crunched. His mouth was open. Tilting his head up, she tried to ignore the snapping sound his neck made, and dumped the potion into his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and much of the fluid leaked out the sides of his mouth.
Once again, the body of the monster was bulging and undulating, as if it were about to erupt. Vanessa was yanking on the spear, tugging it out a little at a time, leaning into it with everything she had.
“Get clear, Kendra,” Vanessa called. “This is not over.”
When Kendra looked back at Warren, he was wispy and translucent. She tried to touch him, and her hand passed through him like he was mist, dissipating him slightly. Kendra raced across the floor and grabbed the sword. Behind her, Vanessa finally jerked the spear free.
As Vanessa launched into the air, Kendra watched the ninth version of the guardian emerge. Long wings unfurled. Twelve serpents sprouted from various spots along its back. Three heavy tails swayed. And three heads bellowed together, a deafening sound even from where Kendra stood behind the beast. The great wings beat down and the beast took flight, pursuing Vanessa.
Kendra gaped in petrified awe. From wingtip to wingtip, the monstrosity stretched across half the cavernous room. It rose swiftly.
Running out of room to ascend, Vanessa started falling instead of rising, hurling the spear as she neared her pursuer. The weapon merely grazed the monster and tumbled toward the floor. All three heads snapped at Vanessa, and all missed. She rebounded off its well-muscled body, snakes striking eagerly, and tumbled toward the ground. Vanessa managed to slow her descent at the last moment, but she still landed heavily only a moment after the spear struck the floor.
Like Errol before her, she lost her grip on the rod, and it floated away toward the ceiling. Quivering, snake-bitten, dragging a broken leg, she crawled for the spear. Above, the three-headed fiend descended, roaring exultantly. Beyond the monster, Kendra saw a pair of figures falling toward her.
Propping herself up with the spear, Vanessa stood and faced the three-headed monster cat as it landed before her. The cat watched her from well out of reach. Kendra recognized Tanu and Coulter descending swiftly, both albino, and she waved her arms at them.
Even as scalding sludge fountained from three mouths, dousing Vanessa in blistering agony, Tanu alighted beside Kendra, snatched his potion pouch, and upended a bottle into his mouth. He accepted the sword from Kendra. As Vanessa screamed, Tanu expanded, clothes splitting as he doubled in height, a huge man becoming a giant, the sword looking like a knife in his enormous hand.
Too late the three-headed monster turned, as Tanu raged, stabbing and slashing, hacking off wings and serpents even as he was clawed and bitten. Tanu’s heavy arm pistoned mercilessly until the monster crumpled, and Tanu collapsed atop the beast, bleeding from bitter wounds.
Kendra watched in horror as the carcass of the monster began to boil. Tanu scooted away from it. But this time, instead of folding in upon itself, the corpse melted away and simmered into nothingness, as if it had never been.
Coulter and Kendra ran to Tanu, who lay on his side. The white Samoan pointed at the space the monster had occupied. There sat a bright, copper teapot worked into the shape of a cat, with the tail forming the spout. Coulter retrieved it. “Doesn’t look like much,” he said.
“I may need to touch it,” Kendra said, taking the pot from him. Light at first, the pot started getting heavier. The exterior of the pot did not change, but Kendra recognized the difference. “It’s filling up.”
“Pour it,” Tanu gasped.
Tanu had three deep, ragged gouges across his beefy forearm. Kendra poured golden dust from the teapot onto the wounds. Much of the dust seemed to dissolve on contact. The gouges vanished, leaving no scar. An enormous chunk of flesh was missing from Tanu’s shoulder, but when Kendra filled the gaping wound with dust from the teapot, it closed and the skin above it looked like new.
As Kendra shook the feline teapot over Tanu, his white flesh returned to a healthy brown, and all his wounds closed and vanished. Tanu shook his head, powdery dust rising from his hair.
Kendra hurried over to Vanessa, who lay moaning, withered, unrecognizable, incapable of movement or speech. “I should heal her,” Kendra said.
“I would love to say no,” Tanu said. “But it is the right thing to do.”
“Technically
we’re not on the preserve,” Coulter reminded them. “What happens in here, stays in here.”
“Don’t let her near any weapons,” Kendra warned them.
Coulter kicked the spear away as Kendra coated Vanessa with the dust from the teapot. The healing dust renewed itself and continued to flow until Kendra stopped pouring, leaving Vanessa perfectly whole and unscarred. She sat up, staring at the teapot in wonder. “Nothing could have cured those burns,” she said in amazement. “I was blind and nearly deaf.”
“This is over,” Tanu told Vanessa. “There are others stronger than us waiting just outside the entrance.”
Vanessa said nothing more.
Coulter remained near her, sword in hand. “I suppose it goes without saying, if you slip into a trance, you’ll never come out of it.”
Kendra went over to Errol and dumped dust on him. Nothing changed. He was dead.
“We may be able to save Warren,” Kendra said.
“I noticed he was gaseous,” Tanu said, having tied his torn clothes together into a loincloth. “Which means he is alive. The potion would not have worked if he were dead. He must be nearly gone, or he would be able to move around freely in his gaseous state. Instead he lies in a daze. Considering the power of the dust in that artifact, I’m sure we will be able to restore him. Dale will thank you forever.”
“Vanessa said she found you in the woods and put you to sleep,” Kendra said.
“Then she was lying,” Tanu said.
“Bluffing,” Vanessa rephrased.
“When I came to myself, I returned to the house,” Tanu continued. “I approached cautiously, and must have arrived not long after Vanessa departed to come here. I picked the locks to the dungeon. It is much easier to sneak into that prison than to sneak out. Your grandparents are fine. They retrieved the register, and we found friends waiting outside the gates of Fablehaven.”
Not long after that, Tanu returned to his regular size and adjusted his clothes. They stood next to the ghostly, smoky form of Warren until the gas coalesced and he became solid once more. As soon as he became tangible, Kendra covered him with dust from the teapot, mending broken bones and poisoned tissue and burns and ruptured organs. He sat up, blinking, unbelieving. When he removed the blood-soaked shirt from his abdomen, he found no mark beneath it. Warren was no longer albino. He had dark hair and intense hazel eyes.
Kendra also dusted Coulter, curing his albinism.
“We should hurry,” Tanu said. “Dale will be needing some healing himself. The hobgoblin left him lame.”
They bound Vanessa’s hands with the same rope that had bandaged Warren, and levitated up to the catwalk, Tanu holding Vanessa. They replaced their rods in the alcove. No monkeys stirred as they crossed the mosaic, though they still had to tread carefully on the stairs. They found Dale in the sandy room, where only the blue woman, the half-spider, and the dwarf remained on the walls.
Dale shouted in ecstasy upon seeing his brother revived and well, and they embraced for a long while before Kendra could get near enough to heal his legs. Once his legs were well, Dale stared at the teapot in wonder, wiping away tears of joy, and proclaimed that now he had officially seen everything.
One final surprise awaited Kendra. When at length they reached the uppermost chamber in the tower and climbed the knotted rope to reach the stone platform in the formerly cursed grove, she found the Sphinx and Mr. Lich waiting to welcome them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Quiet Box
“Tell me about the cat again,” Seth said, sitting on the bed with his legs crossed, trying to juggle three blocks.
“Again?” Kendra said, looking up from her book.
“I can’t believe I missed the coolest thing anyone has ever seen,” Seth complained, losing control of the blocks after two tosses. “A giant, flying, snake-covered, three-headed, acid-breathing panther. If you didn’t have witnesses, I’d be sure you made it up just to torture me.”
“Being there wasn’t much fun,” Kendra said. “I was pretty sure we were all going to die.”
“And it hosed down Vanessa with a massive acid blast,” he continued enthusiastically. “Was she screaming?”
“She couldn’t scream,” Kendra said. “She was just sort of moaning. She looked like she’d been dipped in lava.”
“All that to guard the lamest thing ever: a shabby old teapot.”
“A teapot that cured all your zombie wounds,” Kendra said.
“I know, it’s useful, but it looks like a bad decision from a really pathetic garage sale. You just like it because your fairy voodoo made it work.” He started trying to juggle again and immediately lost the rhythm, one of the blocks falling to the floor.
Grandpa opened the door to the attic bedroom. “The Sphinx says he’s ready, if you still want to join us,” he reported.
Kendra smiled. It was nice seeing Grandpa walking around again like his old self. To her, healing Grandpa Sorenson had seemed like the most miraculous consequence of retrieving the artifact. The other injuries were so recent that they had somehow not sunk in as being real. It had been as if the teapot were washing away the memory of a bad dream. But Grandpa had been in a wheelchair ever since she had arrived at Fablehaven this year, so watching him cut the cast off and walk around was particularly impressive.
“Heck, yeah,” Seth said, bouncing off the bed. “I’ve missed too much! I’m not missing this.”
Kendra got up as well, although her feelings were more conflicted than Seth’s. Rather than wanting to witness Vanessa’s final sentence as a novelty, or perhaps to gloat, she hoped to reach some sense of closure for the betrayal Vanessa had enacted.
It had been the Sphinx who had recommended the Quiet Box. The previous day, after Vanessa had been incarcerated in the dungeon, they had all sat around filling in the blanks for each other. Grandma and Grandpa knew almost none of the story. Seth held them enthralled with how he overcame the revenant. Kendra and Warren told of the descent into the tower and the battle with the cat. Tanu, Coulter, and Dale told of the rescue they had mounted, how when they had approached the grove with the Sphinx, the imp who appeared to be guarding it had turned and fled, and how Dale had been injured by the hobgoblin.
The Sphinx explained that he had been on the move because of evidence that the Society of the Evening Star was closing in on his location. Once he was clear, he became worried that nobody at Fablehaven was answering his calls, and doubly concerned when he found the gates locked and nobody responding to his solicitations for entry. He had waited there until Tanu finally answered the phone after freeing Grandpa. Tanu had opened the gates for him.
In the end, the conversation had turned to Vanessa. The problem was, as a narcoblix, she would forever have power over those she had bitten whenever they were asleep. “She must be shut away in a prison that will inhibit her power,” the Sphinx had said emphatically. “We cannot expect Mr. Lich to spend the remainder of his life watching her.” At the time, Mr. Lich was in the dungeon, stationed outside her cell.
“Can’t the sand from the artifact cure those of us she bit?” Kendra asked.
“I have been studying the artifact,” the Sphinx said. “Its healing powers appear to affect only the physical body. I do not believe it can cure maladies of the mind. The dust instantly removed the marks from her bite, but it is powerless against the mental link the bite forges.”
“Do you know of a prison that would curtail her power?” Grandpa asked.
The Sphinx paused and then nodded to himself. “I have a simple answer. The Quiet Box in your very own dungeon will suit our needs perfectly.”
“What about the current occupant?” Grandma asked.
“I know the history of the current prisoner inside your Quiet Box,” the Sphinx said. “He has great political significance, but no talents that require such a mighty cage. I know a place where he will be no more likely to cause harm.”
“Who is he?” Seth asked.
“For the safety of all, the
identity of the prisoner must remain a mystery,” the Sphinx said. “Let your curiosity take comfort in the reality that for most of you, the name would hold little meaning. I was present when he was sealed in the box, trussed up and hooded, disguised and unknown to the others who attended the event. I worked long to ensure his capture, and to keep all knowledge of him hidden. Now I will provide the anonymous captive with new confinement, so the Quiet Box can be used to secure the type of villain for which it was designed. Morally, with her as our prisoner, we cannot execute Vanessa. But neither can we reward her treachery with leniency, or provide her the slightest opportunity to inflict further harm.”
All had agreed that it was a sound plan. Seth had asked to be present for the prisoner exchange. Kendra had seconded the request. The Sphinx said he saw no harm in it, since the current occupant of the Quiet Box was unrecognizable beneath his mask and bindings. Grandpa had granted permission.
As Kendra followed Grandpa and Seth down the stairs, she reflected that this punishment was in many ways worse than an execution. From what she had gathered, imprisonment in the Quiet Box meant centuries of uninterrupted solitude. The Box put the occupant in a suspended state but did not render the prisoner entirely unconscious. She could not imagine complete sensory deprivation for a day, let alone a year, but this was potentially many lifetimes standing upright inside a snug container. She could only guess at the psychological consequences of such extended isolation.
Kendra was hurt that Vanessa had betrayed her, and glad to see her come to justice, but the prolonged confinement of the Quiet Box struck her as a heavy price for even the most heinous crime. Even so, the Sphinx was right — Vanessa could not be permitted to exert further control over those she had bitten.
They met Grandma in the kitchen and descended together into the dungeon, where they found Mr. Lich escorting Vanessa from her cell, with a firm grip on her upper arm. The Sphinx nodded gravely. “Once again we prepare to part ways,” he said. “Hopefully our next meeting will be under less duress.”
[Fablehaven 02] - Rise of the Evening Star Page 32
