by Brandon Mull
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re kidding.”
“I think so,” Warren said. “Mostly.”
“I’m ready,” Kendra said.
“Onward,” Tanu said, shouldering his pack.
At the end of the great hall, they reached a long flight of red stairs as broad as bleachers. They started up, and Kendra eventually felt her legs become weary.
“What if a dragon is hiding at the top?” Warren complained. “I’ll need a time-out to get my breath back. Isn’t there an escalator?”
“No dragon in this area,” Raxtus offered. “In case that helps.”
At the top of the stairs, they found a splendid set of double doors designed in a distinctively Asian style. Beside the doors hung a round, golden gong with a mallet on a nearby stand.
“Who wants to do the honors?” Tanu asked.
“I guess a sneak attack is out?” Warren checked.
“Should I?” Kendra asked.
“No, let me,” Vanessa said. “In case there is a trap or magical penalty.”
“In that case, allow me,” Warren said, cutting in front of Vanessa. “My main job on my basketball team was drawing fouls.”
He picked up the mallet and smashed it against the gong, producing a long, shimmering reverberation. The double doors slid open of their own accord, revealing a pristine white floor, expertly painted with golden vines and leaves. A row of glossy black columns extended left to right beyond the doors, separating the entryway from the rest of the chamber. Beyond the columns gleamed an elaborate maze of spotless mirrors.
As Kendra and the others came through the wide doorway, a long Chinese dragon swept into view, body undulating as it hovered, scales flashing like gilded coins. The brilliant creature had no wings, and little sets of pawed feet dangled along the serpentine body. The head resembled a fox with golden fur and eyes as bright as emeralds.
“Welcome, doomed mortals who enter my chamber,” spoke a clear voice that seemed to come from all directions. “If you each leave your most valuable item on my doorstep, I will allow you to depart in peace.”
“Jinzen,” Raxtus said. “A treasure dragon. I’ve heard of you. All dragons hoard. Your tastes are much more refined. A true collector.”
“What misapprehension brings a dragon to my domain?” Jinzen asked, eyes flaring with anger. “Do you not know that I guard a talisman made to destroy all dragonkind? End this foul betrayal at once.”
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Raxtus said. “The Harp of Ages might be just the medicine I need.”
“By all means, come inside, if you yearn for death,” Jinzen said brightly. “I can use the exercise.”
The double doors slammed shut, cutting off escape. Corkscrewing like a twirled ribbon, Jinzen streaked away into the maze of mirrors. For a prolonged moment, multiple reflections of his glittering body stretched across dozens of surfaces, elongating the dragon to impossible dimensions, until he was no longer in view.
“Let’s start by leveling the playing field,” Warren said, rushing past the columns to the nearest mirror, sword raised. At least a dozen reflections of Warren from various angles swung their swords in unison. The blade rebounded off the mirror with a clang.
“Ow!” Warren cried, switching his sword to his less dominant hand so he could shake out his arm. He banged the mirror with the hilt of his sword, then rubbed his free hand against the reflective surface. “I can’t even leave a smudge.”
Returning his sword to his dominant hand, Warren stabbed the mirror twice and slashed it once more without making a scratch. “It’s like steel.”
“It’s probably enchanted glass,” Raxtus said. “Look out!”
With a telltale whoosh, Jinzen arrowed back into view. Warren flattened himself against the mirror as Jinzen streamed by. The dragon’s laughter emanated from all directions.
After the golden dragon zoomed out of view again, Warren staggered away from the mirror, blood spreading across his shoulder. “I feel like I picked up fifty deep paper cuts,” Warren said. “The worst one is on my shoulder.”
“He’s playing with you,” Raxtus said. “Come away from there.”
Warren ran back to the shelter of the colonnade.
“I could use a hand, Kendra,” Raxtus said.
Kendra placed her palm on the dragon’s neck, and prismatic radiance shone from his metallic scales as her power flowed into him. Raxtus breathed a minty mist onto Warren, who sank to his knees.
“That feels good,” Warren said dreamily.
“I’m especially adept with slits and scrapes,” Raxtus said.
Vanessa slapped Warren. “Snap out of it,” she said. “We need you.”
“Right,” Warren said, getting to his feet. He raised a bottle to his lips and upended it. His steps began to wobble, and the arm holding the sword stretched longer than his other one. “This dragon wants to play? I can play too.”
“What do we do?” Kendra asked Raxtus.
“The corners are too tight and the passages too narrow for me to fly in there,” Raxtus said. “Jinzen doesn’t have to worry about wings. Let me see what I can learn on foot. He’s scary fast, but not terribly huge. If I could just get a hold of him . . .”
Wings tucked, Raxtus charged into the maze. Dozens of reflections of the silvery dragon dashed one way or another until Raxtus raced out of view. Fierce laughter resounded through the room, and Kendra heard the crunch of a big collision. A moment later, Raxtus came hurtling from the maze to slam against a nearby column.
“Raxtus!” Kendra cried, running to where the dragon lay curled around the foot of the column. “Are you all right?”
His head swiveled up, eyes not entirely focused. “Great, except for getting hit by a freight train. He has blazing speed and unearthly reflexes. I’m out of my depth. And he uses at least some of the mirrors as cross-dimensional portals.”
“He flies into them?” Vanessa asked.
“And comes out from other ones,” Raxtus said.
“Can you do that?” Kendra asked.
“Not in his playground,” Raxtus said. “He has a major home field advantage.”
“Are you going to remain by the entrance?” Jinzen asked from all directions. “The way you’re currently grouped, I could dispatch all of you with one pass. Come, make a sport of it.”
“What should we do?” Kendra asked.
“Give him the best you have,” Raxtus said. “It’s now or never.”
“If I mention fairy treasure, close your eyes,” Kendra whispered, displaying her ring.
Warren charged into the maze on wobbly legs, sword gripped in two hands.
“Speed potion,” Vanessa whispered.
“I’ll try the same,” Tanu said.
“Give me one too,” Kendra said.
“Remember, after the burst of speed, this mixture will leave you depleted,” Tanu cautioned. He passed Vanessa a potion and handed Kendra one as well. Then he followed Vanessa into the maze, their many reflections overlapping before diverging and vanishing.
Raxtus arched his neck as Kendra placed both hands on the flawless armor of his scales. With his entire body shedding light, his tail swished, and he stood up. “Wow, that’s potent energy. I’m back. What do you need?”
“Can you get me to a spot in the maze with maximum reflections?” Kendra whispered.
“He’s a dragon of light,” Raxtus cautioned. “It may not blind him.”
“Raxtus, could you be blinded by too much light?” Kendra asked.
“Probably, in enough excess,” Raxtus said. “I can’t look directly at the sun.”
“You’re a dragon of light,” Kendra said. “This is the best idea I’ve got.”
Kendra ran into the maze with Raxtus at her side. The strategically angled mirrors threw her reflections everywhere, along
with duplicates of Raxtus. In some spots, repetitions of herself stretched outward toward infinity. Most of the mirrors showed true reflections, but occasionally Kendra found herself and Raxtus upside down, or magnified, or refracted into thousands of miniature likenesses.
They reached a portion of the maze where the ceiling and floor were mirrored as well, extending space to forever in all directions. Endless rows of herself and Raxtus repeated outward along unexpected diagonals, and she began to blunder into mirrors.
Kendra caught fleeting glimpses of Jinzen and Tanu at odd angles and from a distance. She reached a pocket of the maze where images of Warren repeated. The reflections of Warren multiplied until she found him on the ground. From the waist down Warren had been squished flat, and teeth had left deep, bloodless impressions in his chest.
“Are you all right?” Kendra asked.
“Fine,” Warren said. “Except I lost my sword, and it might take a minute for my legs to return to their proper shape.”
As Kendra watched, the indentations decreased, and Warren’s legs regained more functional proportions. Raxtus brought a sword in his jaws and dropped it beside Warren.
“Jinzen is unbelievably fast,” Warren said. “I thought I timed a perfect swing, but he dipped under it, mowed me down, and savaged me. Thanks to the potion, it didn’t break my skin.”
“I’m using my speed potion!” Vanessa announced.
“You call that speed?” Jinzen mocked. “Quick for a mortal, I suppose.”
Body flexing as if he had joints in the wrong places, Warren swayed to his feet. Kendra heard rushing air, and the mirrors began to fill with an endlessly long golden body in rapid motion. Raxtus thrust Kendra to the floor and disappeared with a noisy crash as a shimmering stream of gold blurred by above her. Manic laughter bombarded her ears from all directions.
When Kendra sat up, Warren and Raxtus were gone. She was alone with thousands of reflections of herself. She heard vicious snarls and claws ringing against hard surfaces.
“This vase looks expensive,” Vanessa called, her voice off in the distance. The remark was followed by a shattering smash. “Whoops!”
“No, no, no, no, no, no!” Jinzen shouted from all sides. “Why?”
“I upgraded my speed,” Tanu announced from a different direction than Vanessa. “Check this out! Who would sculpt a bridge out of jade? The trees on the riverbank look so fragile!” What followed sounded like a baseball bat destroying a chandelier.
“Noooooooo!” Jinzen howled in rage.
Kendra heard a rush of wind and began to see golden flashes in the mirrors. Jinzen was flying her way.
“Look at the fairy treasure I found!” Kendra hollered, raising her hand, closing her eyes, and putting on the ring.
She could feel the light against her skin, and it flared unbelievably bright even with her eyes closed. She forced all the power she could muster into the ring and felt the glare intensify. Then, with a bursting sound, the ring went dark and no longer felt connected to her power.
Jinzen was half roaring, half screaming. Kendra crouched low, hands over her ears.
“My eyes!” Jinzen yelled. “You devils will pay for that trick.” It sounded like he was colliding with mirror after mirror, flopping around haphazardly. “You will pay dearly!”
“Everyone lie low,” Warren shouted. “This overhyped dragon is mine. After I smash more of his things. Where is the little worm? Is he hiding?”
Kendra got down flat on her stomach and pressed into the juncture where the floor met the wall. Glancing at the ring, she noticed that the white stones forming a unicorn were gone, with empty sockets in their place. Somehow her energy had consumed them.
She could see a reflection of Warren walking, clutching two large poleaxes with huge, semicircular blades. Arms unsteadily straining, he dragged the butts of the axes on the floor to manage the weight, keeping one facing ahead of himself, one behind. He chattered nonstop.
“What’s the matter, Jinzen?” Warren taunted. “Do you think if you close your eyes we can’t see you?”
Kendra no longer heard the dragon crashing into things. Was he keeping still? Had his sight returned? Did he have his mirror maze memorized? Gilded lengths of dragon flickered in the mirrors, and Kendra heard a whistling rush of air.
“A lot of dragons get slow in their old age,” Warren heckled, arms wobbling, trying to keep the axes stable. “And they become so fussy about their weird possessions.”
Kendra saw Jinzen speed directly into the ax Warren held behind himself, the dragon splitting down the middle for nearly a third of his length before slamming to the floor, dragging Warren with him. After sliding to a stop, Jinzen did not move.
Arising, Kendra chased the reflections of the motionless dragon in the wrong direction several times before making her way to the actual corpse. She arrived at the same time as Raxtus and found Warren bent sickeningly out of shape.
“I’m okay,” Warren claimed, responding to her expression. “No pain. I’m already regaining my normal form. Great flash, Kendra! I could sense it with my eyes shut. It did the trick.”
“You taunted him into flying right at you,” Kendra said.
“He had flung me into a treasure pile,” Warren said. “I found the axes right after your flash. He could hear which way I was facing and tried to take me from behind. I caught a glimpse of his milky white eyes just before impact. He was blind as a bat. Ran straight into the ax.”
Reflections of Tanu staggered into view. Minutes later, his actual form rounded a nearby corner, peaked and panting. “That speed potion takes a lot out of a guy.”
Somewhere, they heard Vanessa quietly weeping.
Warren scowled, unsteadily rising. “Vanessa?”
She didn’t answer, but the soft crying continued.
“That isn’t like her,” Warren said.
“This way,” Raxtus offered.
The fairy dragon led them through many twists and turns. Kendra kept her eyes on Raxtus and tried to ignore the disorienting parade of reflections. They found Vanessa just outside the maze, in a luxurious area heaped with treasure. The shards of a broken vase lay nearby on the floor.
Vanessa sat on a mound of gold coins, face in her hands, shoulders shaking. Warren went to her, but she swiveled away at his touch.
“Vanessa, what’s wrong?” Warren asked.
“I’m so foolish,” she lamented through her sobs.
“You did great,” Warren said. “We got Jinzen.”
“I knew not to look,” Vanessa said with self-loathing. “I was an instant too late. The whole maze went supernova. I’ve compromised my role on this mission.”
Her hands dropped to reveal her milky white eyes.
Merek stopped just before the stairs led into a circular room littered with bones. Seth stood next to him staring at the morbid jumble of skeletons, some plainly human, others clearly not.
“Is it a lair?” Seth asked.
“See the black stone in the middle of the floor?” Merek asked. “The one rising above the bones?”
“The blocky one?” Seth checked. “With little veins of red?”
“There is something wrong with that stone,” Merek said. “Do you see the dimness around it? As if it pollutes the nearby light. Or maybe absorbs it.”
Testing with his shadow-charming senses, Seth could feel the rock had a deep, though alien, awareness. He perceived no words—just a profound hunger.
“It’s hungry,” Seth said.
“Yes,” Merek said. “Certain rocks are more aware than others. I’ve run across some ancient ones that have developed strong identities, along with peculiar attitudes and appetites. That is no ordinary rock. Bones carpet the room for a reason.”
“Want me to check it out?” Calvin offered.
“No,” Merek said, removing Serena from his pocket. “Mo
st living creatures who enter that room don’t stay alive for long. I’m a little different, though.” He handed Serena to Seth.
“Are you sure about this?” Seth asked.
“Who can be sure about a malevolent rock?” Merek said. “Keep your guard up.”
Merek stepped into the room. He turned back to Seth and nodded. “It’s draining my life away.”
“Get out,” Seth urged.
“I have life to give,” Merek said, picking his way through the bones toward the stone.
“So do I,” Seth countered. “I wouldn’t mind getting a few years older.”
“It doesn’t make you older,” Merek said, lying down with his chest atop the rock. “It saps your life. A baby would wither and die in here, not grow. Come through the room. It’s feeding completely from me. Hurry.”
Seth raced into the room, stumbling on some bones as he hastily crossed. Once he passed through the far doorway, he turned to Merek and called, “I made it.”
“Get well into the hall,” Merek said.
Seth complied as Merek got off the rock and rejoined him.
“You look the same,” Seth said.
“I’m one of the undying,” Merek said. “I have an inexhaustible supply of life. And one like me could never carry the Unforgiving Blade. That room should have thwarted anyone who could wield it. Look! More stairs.”
Up they climbed, winding to unguessable heights within the thick walls of the pyramid. Seth wondered how quickly a normal person would have died in the room with the black rock.
“Have you ever died?” Seth asked.
“Many times,” Merek said. “And I am always reborn.”
“You remember multiple lives?” Seth asked.
“I do since you restored my memories,” Merek said. “Mine is a long history. Being reborn can play tricks with your recollections. So can long periods of inaction. Certain types of memory lapses can be regenerative, like sleep, allowing a person to rest and recharge.”
From up ahead they heard a continuous, earthy grinding. When they reached the next doorway, they found a circular room with a rock floor that sloped into the walls like a shallow bowl. Circling inside the bowl was a spherical stone ball, tall enough to reach Seth’s chin.
