“That’s all?” Blue scoffed. “I’m insulted.”
“We are not afraid of Hook,” SJ said. “We need to get to the Temple of Malbona and we could use some assistance finding it.”
“That forsaken snake pit?” Chawkovsky huffed. “It’s not far—about ten miles into the jungle. I don’t know the specifics. Only men with greed that outweighs good sense go there.”
“You think there’s anyone in here that might be willing to take us?” I asked, looking around at the crowded bar full of people clearly watching us and pretending not to.
“Possibly,” Chawkovsky hedged.
“Okay then.” I turned to my friends. “Since we have their attention, might as well make use of it.”
I hopped up on a barstool and then stood on the counter.
“Listen up!” Every pair of eyes in the tavern fell on me. “My name is Crisanta Knight. I know you are all aware of some big price that Hook has on our heads. Well, I’m about to make you a better offer.”
I concentrated and the golden glow of my Pure Magic brilliantly lit up my hands. Several men fell out of their chairs. I held up one of my energy-consumed palms.
“This is Pure Magic,” I announced. “I have the power to give life to anyone and anything. Whoever takes us to the Temple of Malbona as fast as they can will be indebted one favor from me.”
“Aye, and what if we just kill ye and take yer magic for ourselves?” asked an elderly pirate with a bald head and black vest, standing up and thrusting his sword at me.
“Yeah,” several other pirates echoed, drawing their weapons.
“Well, you could try,” I responded with a shrug. “But . . .”
I shot my gaze down at SJ and Blue. My friends moved so quick I barely had time to blink. Blue fired six throwing knives from her utility belt, which was enchanted to instantly replenish them. The blades pinned three pirates to the wall by their sleeves. SJ pulled out a personally concocted portable potion from her sack and fired it with her slingshot like a marble. The silver potion erupted at the feet of the bald pirate and encased him and the four men at his table in a block of ice.
“Hey!” Chawkovsky protested. “I just lacquered that table.”
“Bill me,” SJ said over her shoulder.
To add flourish to the point, I sent some of my magic into half a dozen bar stools. It was easy—a little focus on a temporary mental command and on my will the stools swiftly contorted together to form a wood-vinyl monster that lumbered next to my friends and I like a giant bodyguard. The sparks of power inside me hummed, happy to be used. I’d been giving the magic a rest since this morning, but now I felt rarin’ and ready to go.
“So . . .” I said, crossing my arms. “Any takers?”
Many of the pirates stumbled back nervously. However, one lean man wearing a muscle tee and a single earring stepped forward. “Come with me. I know the way.” He didn’t say anything else; he simply strode out of the bar into the daylight.
My friends and I exchanged a glance.
Well, all right then.
I leapt off the counter. My barstool creature dissembled as the temporary life I’d given it wore off. Blue trailed after the man who’d volunteered. Her eyes turned Questor Beast green as she walked, but this time I think she was doing it on purpose. It certainly added an extra oomph to the death glare she gave the pirates.
I followed Blue, but paused at the pub door and looked back. SJ was leaning over the counter toward Chawkovsky. “Seriously,” she said. “Bill me. I will gladly cover the damages when we have finished our mission.” She took a sideways glance at the rack where the nozzle of the beverage gun rested. Then she walked toward me.
I held the door open for her, then pivoted back to the tavern patrons. “As you were.”
The last time I’d been in a speeding car, Daniel and I had been zooming in a Toyota 4Runner through the streets of Germany. Driving through the Neverland jungle in a beaten-up Jeep Wrangler wasn’t much safer. It tore through the jungle with no mercy at the hands of our escort.
Our driver—the pirate who’d volunteered his services in Once Upon a Tavern—was actually not a pirate at all. He was a former storyteller.
Storytellers were people from other worlds permitted to visit the Wonderlands by the White Rabbits, who monitored Portalscape Portals and regulated realm-to-realm travel. These storytellers would exchange otherworldly innovations for their time in the Wonderlands. This system of trade had given the magic realms access to different tools and technology over the years, such as electricity, waterproof mascara, and tacos, to name a few. Meanwhile, the storytellers were given the opportunity to study the histories of our magic worlds and their protagonists. Once they did their research, storytellers would return to their worlds and sell the information in the form of stories—books, television shows, films, and so forth.
The pirate at the wheel was a storyteller who came to Neverland to gather information for a script in the works at a company called Paramount Pictures. He’d brought the Jeep in exchange but had fallen in love with the realm and decided to keep the Jeep and settle here. Now he only returned to his world occasionally for gas.
His name was Joe and he seemed to be an adequate escort through the jungle, although for a supposed storyteller, he didn’t say much. Other than occasionally calling out “hold on” to warn of incoming sharp turns, he was silent for most of the ride.
I kept one hand on the door handle and the other on the driver’s seat in front of me. Blue rode shotgun and SJ was beside me. I’d chosen the seat behind Joe because if he double-crossed us, it put me in the best position to attack him.
We came to an abrupt stop, slamming SJ and I forward and back.
“We’re here,” Joe said, throwing open his door. We unbuckled our seatbelts and pursued him into the open.
Our escort had a large machete strapped to his back and a smaller version of the weapon—called a parang—attached to his belt. He’d put on a wide-brimmed hat before we’d taken off; it added a shadow to his face that I didn’t like.
“There,” he said, pointing ahead. “That’s the entrance to the Temple of Malbona.”
My friends and I looked past him. There was a clearing in the thick of the jungle with square tiles set into the soil to create a floor. The clearing was surrounded by crumbling stones, and the tiles themselves had weird designs on them like an ancient language. Most of the markings were faded and everything was covered in vines. At least I thought they were vines. Then some of them moved and I realized they were snakes.
“My advice to you,” Joe said as we walked to the center of the clearing, “is to think wicked thoughts. The Temple of Malbona is supposedly home to many lost riches and treasures. But the monsters and traps that protect it will only give safe passage to those who project true darkness. Malbona is Esperanto for ‘evil.’ Not even your average pirate or thief can get through, as most people, antagonists included, have both light and dark inside them. To channel the level of darkness needed for protection, you would pretty much need to have no soul.”
“No soul,” I repeated. My eyes widened and I turned to my friends. “Shadow Guardians don’t have a soul! They give it up when they let the Shadows possess them. That must be why Ormé came here to look for Arthur and Peter. There are Shadow Guardians among Arian’s men. If their darkness from lack of souls allows them safe passage, they can use the temple as a base and hold Arthur and Peter here without worrying about anyone trying to rescue them.”
“Except Ormé and the Gwenivere Brigade are trying to rescue them. Which means since they’re good guys, I doubt things have gone well for them in the temple.” Blue pivoted toward our escort. “Joe, these ruins look ancient. What kind of monsters could survive down there all this time?”
“Beats me. You asked for a guide through the jungle, not an archaeologist. Who do I look like, Indiana Jones?”
SJ tilted her head. “Who?”
“It’s a movie reference,” Joe explained.
“No.”
“Then I don’t care. Just show us the way in.”
Joe sighed and walked over to two tiles in the center of the ruins that were slightly elevated. He got on his hands and knees and waved us over. “Help me push.”
We knelt beside him and discovered a split between the tiles. They were meant to slide apart.
I helped Joe push the left tile outward while SJ and Blue did the same to the right tile until we’d revealed a trap door in the ground. The four of us peered inside and gaped at the vastness below.
“You’re on your own from here,” Joe said, standing brusquely. He turned to me. “About that magical favor you owe me. I don’t know when I’m gonna need it, but I’ll give you a call when I do. Do you have a Mark Two?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Keep it on you. I’ll be in touch, Crisanta Knight.”
He tipped his hat then walked back toward his Jeep and hopped in, revving the engine. “Remember,” he called, leaning out the window. “Only evil survives in there. So channel the dark side of the force!”
“Force of what?” Blue shouted above the engine.
“It’s a movie reference! Look it up!” And with that, Joe put his car in reverse and backed out of sight.
I checked my Hole Tracker. “I doubt we’ll make the next set of portals. But we might have a shot at reaching the ones after that. They don’t look so far away.”
“Not that it will matter if we all die in there,” SJ commented.
“That’s the spirit,” Blue countered. “Now come on. After all we’ve been through, don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few little monsters.”
Blue began to lower herself down a rope ladder that extended from within the trap door. I was about to follow when something hit me.
A wave of magic energy was rolling through the atmosphere, a herald of the approaching Vicennalia Aurora. I felt it in every vein in my body and on every hair on my head. Merlin had told me that as the Aurora strengthened Pure Magic and weakened regular magic throughout the day, I would become increasingly powerful. In addition, sporadic waves of magic energy would flood the atmosphere as a bonus, enhancing my magical strength even more. The first wave this morning had supercharged me. This one felt equally invigorating.
I took a deep breath, wondering if this was similar to how Blue felt as her Questor Beast powers settled in. She’d said it was like she had energy buzzing inside her that wanted to get out. I felt that exact sensation now. The strength that came with these waves made the power stir inside me.
When Blue had climbed down a few rungs, I centered myself and descended.
The cavern was the size of a ballroom but double the height. The upper part of the walls was composed of bronze bricks with the same markings as the tiles outside. The bricks on the lower half, meanwhile, were an assortment of rainbow colors—reds, blues, yellows, and whites—that looked like chunks of hard candy. They also had strange markings, which radiated a faint glow, providing the only source of light in the cavern. It gave the whole place a creepy, tomblike feel. Distorted shadows spilled in from four wide corridors that connected to the room, adding to the effect.
The ladder ended five feet above a tall pyramid in the center of the room. It was made of the same candy bricks and had a flat top. Blue dismounted the ladder over it, landing on the level platform. A high note, like an upper key on a piano, sounded when she touched down, and the bricks her boots hit glowed white. I landed beside Blue shortly after and when I did the bricks beneath my boots made the same sound and illuminated too.
Weird.
SJ dropped gracefully beside me, triggering an identical sound and white light.
“There are stairs on that side,” Blue said, gesturing to the left of the pyramid.
I glanced over the edge. We were approximately fifty feet above the ground, and the steep steps that led to the amber-colored floor were each taller than me. They would take effort to descend.
Blue cocked her head suddenly. “Do you guys hear that?”
I did. There was loud hissing coming from the corridors. And I mean really loud. I couldn’t fathom what could produce such a horrible, spine-curdling sound. Then three snakes emerged from three of the four corridors and I understood.
These weren’t like the snakes in the jungle outside. They were colossal, sapphire-blue reptiles with heads the size of carriages and bodies like baobab tree trunks. One came from the corridor on the left, one from the right, and one from directly ahead. They slithered forward on powdery-blue underbellies, bright yellow eyes focused on us, red tongues popping out with each hiss.
“Slide!” Blue grabbed SJ and me by the wrists and we leapt off the backside of the pyramid. Luckily, the pyramid’s sides were as steep as they were smooth, and my friends and I reached the bottom just before the snakeheads came around the pyramid.
SJ fired a flurry of jade portable potions at the snakes’ eyes, which burst into giant blobs of slime and temporarily blinded them. The monsters lunged at us nonetheless, tongues catching our scent, but we dodged their strikes. SJ launched a series of silver potions that encased their heads in ice, and we sprinted for the corridor directly behind us while the reptiles writhed and bashed, trying to free themselves.
“What was that you said about little monsters, Blue?” SJ commented as we skidded around a corner.
“Oh, shut up,” Blue said.
We turned once more, trying to put distance between the snakes and our group. We ran so fast I thought I might burn a hole in my boots. When the sound of the hissing finally faded, we figured we’d earned a minute to stop and breathe.
SJ took the Mark Two out of her backpack. “Ormé.” It buzzed five times before SJ gave up and clicked the device shut. “We will have to find them the old-fashioned way.”
“Great, aimless wandering in monster-infested halls it is,” Blue said.
Our group continued, trying to move with minimal noise. SJ’s ice wouldn’t hold those snakes long, and based on the size of each of the corridors, they could easily access most parts of the temple.
The glowing markings on the candy-colored brick walls lit our way and stretched to the high roof that separated us from the Neverland jungle. We came across many rooms as we searched. Several had menacing contraptions that looked like torture devices. I didn’t know what had gone down here in ancient times, but if the name of this place translated to “Temple of Evil,” I didn’t want to know.
We turned a corner to find a marble staircase that led deeper underground. It was a bit ominous for my taste, but we forged on. The further we descended, the fewer markings there were on the brick walls and thus the light decreased. The walls also slanted at a decline—getting shorter and shorter.
At the bottom of the stairs the ceiling was only a few feet above our heads. Here the walls were marble whereas the floor was decorated with periodic glowing bricks. When we stepped off the last stair onto the floor, the bricks we touched turned the same vibrant shade of white as the ones on the pyramid we’d landed on. The same high-pitched note sounded too.
That’s when things started to go horribly wrong.
Pointed spikes emerged from a portion of the walls nearest us and started to move closer together. We pivoted to head back up the steps, but they shifted and flattened, transforming into a steep, glossy ramp that we could not possibly climb.
Our only escape was a doorway maybe thirty yards down the ever-narrowing hall. We bolted toward it. As our feet touched the marked bricks along the way, they lit up and made the same high sound, causing new sections of the wall to close around us. By the time we reached the door, most sections of the wall were activated and set to skewer us.
Blue struggled with the handle; some form of mud was caked around the edges of the doorframe. SJ launched ice and slime potions at the edges of walls to slow their progress, but they swiftly pushed past the obstacles.
Finally Blue got
the door open and we pushed through—stumbling into a room with a floor made of the same bricks. The instant we touched them, the familiar note sounded and a slab of stone lowered behind us. It suctioned into the doorway just as the bricks extinguished their light, leaving us almost entirely in the dark. Only a few scarce markings on the bricks around the door we’d entered glowed. It was barely enough to illuminate our faces.
“Nobody take another step,” I said.
I drew my wandpin, which always produced an off-white glow in dark spaces. I transformed the weapon to its full wand size with the mental command Lapellius and then changed it into a shield. The light it radiated helped tremendously. Shuffling came from SJ’s position, and I turned to see her pull a glowing Excalibur out from its sheath.
Combined, our weapons’ light revealed that the floor dropped off inches past where we stood. From that uneven ledge a crumbling column extended across the room like a bridge. The area to either side of it was pure black. The trickle of water echoed off the walls.
I held out my hand to Blue. “Give me one of your throwing knives.”
She obliged. I concentrated and the glow of my magic set the blade ablaze. I commanded the knife to do a sweep of the room so we could better grasp the scope of where we were. The ceiling was only five feet above us and the opposite wall some forty feet beyond. The column bridge led across the room to a door embedded in that wall, which appeared to be our only exit. When I lowered the knife into the blackness below, I could not find the ground. I sent the knife farther and farther down. Then on a hunch, I let go. The knife’s glow ceased and it fell for five seconds before we heard the distinct plop of it plunging into water.
“We need to get to that door, but first we need to amp up the light,” Blue said. “Crisa, can you bring something bigger to life to illuminate the entire room?”
“There’s nothing around here for me to enchant,” I responded. “I can’t bring the bricks on the wall to life. It could destabilize the whole temple.”
Crisanta Knight: The Lost King Page 4
