Fablehaven: The Complete Series (108 page)

Gavin fixed her with an intense stare and spoke with conviction. “You think I’m a dumb teenage boy spouting off about girls having no business on an adventure. Not so. I’m worried about whether
I’ll
survive. I would hate to see you get hurt. Kendra, I insist you tell Warren you would rather stay behind.”

Kendra could not resist laughing. The surprise on his face, the way he went from so intense to so unsure, only added fuel to the fire. It took a moment to regain the power of speech. Gavin looked so crushed that she wanted to reassure him. “Okay, I was being sarcastic before, but you really are sweet. I appreciate the sentiment. I’m scared too—part of me would love to follow your advice. But I won’t be going into the vault, just camping on the mesa with Neil. I wouldn’t do this just for kicks. I think it’s worth the risk.”

Tammy entered the hall wearing a lightweight hooded jacket and carrying a tomahawk. She had tightened the hood so that only her eyes, nose, and mouth were visible. “I can’t believe we’re hiking up a waterfall,” she said. “The trail was tiring enough.”

“You didn’t see anything on top of the mesa last time?” Kendra asked.

“We saw something,” Tammy corrected her. “Something big. It had at least ten legs and it rippled when it moved. But it never came too close. The mesa shouldn’t be a problem. I’m worried about negotiating some of those traps again, though.”

Warren, Neil, Dougan, Hal, and Rosa came down the hall to the door. Dougan held a bulky stone axe. Warren carried a spear.

Hal sauntered over to Kendra, thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his jeans. “You’re really going to lead these nutcases up the mesa?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Reckon I could lend you this.” He held out a stone knife in a buckskin sheath.

“I’d rather she went weaponless, like Neil,” Warren said.

Hal scratched his mustache. “Neil does have a talent for staying alive. Live by the sword, die by the sword, is that it? Might not be a bad idea.” He tucked the knife away.

“We only have climbing gear for five,” Warren announced. “I’ll ascend at the rear without a harness, just keeping hold of the rope.”

“You have the key?” Rosa asked.

Dougan patted his backpack. “Wouldn’t be much use to reach the top without it.”

“We should get under way,” Neil recommended.

Outside, rain continued to drizzle. Neil drove the Jeep with Kendra, Warren, and Tammy. Dougan followed in the truck with Gavin as copilot. Windshield wipers swaying hypnotically, the Jeep sloshed through puddles and occasionally fishtailed in the mud. At one point, Neil gunned the engine and they roared through a stream, water spraying up from both sides of the Jeep like wings. They approached the mesa from a less direct route than before, winding more, and not climbing as steeply. The drive took almost twice as long.

At length they stopped in the same flat, boulder-strewn area where they had parked earlier. Neil cut the engine and killed the headlights. Everyone exited the vehicles and shouldered their gear. Warren, Dougan, and Gavin turned on large waterproof flashlights.

“You see the stairs?” Dougan asked Kendra, squinting into the rainy darkness.

“Barely,” Kendra said. She actually discerned the Flooded Stairs more clearly than she admitted, but wanted to avoid making it obvious that she could see in the dark.

They picked their way forward over wet rocks, looping around several depressions where water had pooled. Part of Kendra wondered why they bothered avoiding the water, considering the climb they were about to undertake. The hood of her poncho magnified the patter of the rainfall.

As they neared the fissure at the foot of the stairs, Kendra found herself beside Neil. “What happens if the rain stops while we’re on the stairway?” she asked.

“Truthfully, I have no idea. I would like to think the stairs will persist while we remain on them. We should probably hurry just in case.”

Warren helped Kendra into a harness, tightened some straps, and wound a rope through some metal clasps. Once they were all linked together, Kendra led the others along the narrow shelf between the cliff and the fissure.

“Don’t focus on the stairs,” Neil instructed the others. “Put your attention on following the person in front of you. It may take some effort.”

Kendra stepped into the rushing water at the base of the stairs and started climbing. The boots gave her better footing than the tennis shoes she had worn earlier. As the steps became steeper, it became impossible to ascend without using her hands. Her sleeves and pant legs became soaked. The rushing water made each step forward feel unstable.

After at least a hundred stairs, they reached the first landing. Kendra turned and looked down, shocked by how much steeper the ascent looked from this perspective than it had felt as she climbed. If she fell, she would undoubtedly tumble all the way down the crude stone stairway, and her corpse would be washed away into the fissure. She backed away from the edge, fearful of hurtling down the most painful waterslide of her life.

Kendra turned. Ahead, the water fell straight for about a hundred feet before noisily splashing on the landing. The stairs became as steep as a ladder, rising to the side of the cascade.

Kendra guided the others forward and started mounting the steepest steps yet, trying to ignore the sound and spray of the waterfall beside her. No stair was wide enough to place her entire sole on it, and the steps were often separated by more than two feet. She moved cautiously upward, always keeping her hands on a higher step as she climbed, the aroma of wet stone filling her nostrils. She concentrated on nothing but the next step, ignoring the void behind her, ignoring the thought of slipping and peeling everyone off the stairs with her. The wind picked up, blowing her hood back and making her long hair flutter like a banner. Her arms trembled with fear and exertion.

Why had she volunteered for this? She should have listened to Gavin. He had tried to give her an out, but pride had prevented her from considering it.

She reached for the next step, got the best hold she could, lifted her right foot, and then her left foot. She pretended that she was only a few feet off the ground as she repeated the tiring process.

At last Kendra reached the top of the waterfall and another broad ledge. Neil boosted himself up behind her. Looking up, there remained a long distance to climb. She denied the impulse to look back or down.

“You’re doing well,” Neil encouraged. “Do you need a break?”

Kendra nodded. She had been so full of adrenaline while climbing beside the waterfall that she had not noticed how fatigued her limbs felt. Kendra pulled her hood up and waited a few minutes on the ledge before proceeding onward.

The stairway now rose back and forth in many short flights. Sometimes the flowing water followed the path of the stairs; sometimes it spilled over and took a shortcut. They scaled flight after flight to landing after landing. Kendra’s legs ached, and she started running out of breath, requiring more frequent pauses the longer she climbed.

The wind began to blow harder, lashing at her poncho, hurling the rain against her, making even the most stable flights of stairs feel treacherous. It was hard to tell if the storm itself was worsening, or if the wind was just more violent at the higher elevation.

After inching along a narrow ledge, Kendra found herself at the base of the last flight of steps, the wind whipping her hair sideways. The final flight was almost as steep as the stairs beside the waterfall, except this time they would have to climb up directly through the cascade.

“These are the last stairs!” Kendra shouted to Neil over the tempest. “They’re steep, and the water is falling fast. Should we wait and see if the storm dies down?”

“The mesa is trying to drive us back,” Neil replied. “Lead on!”

Kendra sloshed forward and started up, climbing with hands and feet. Water sucked at her legs and sprayed off her arms into her face. Whether she was moving or at rest, it felt like the rushing stream was on the verge of tearing away her hold on the slick stairs. Each step was a risk, taking her higher, increasing the distance that she would fall. The others followed in her wake.

One foot slipped as she trusted her weight to it, and her knee smacked down painfully against a step, water gushing around her thigh. Neil placed a steadying hand against the small of her back and helped her rise. Higher and higher she climbed, until the top was ten steps away, then five, then her head saw above the edge of the mesa, and she mounted the final few stairs. Kendra walked away from the stairway and the stream to solid rock strewn with puddles.

The others finished the climb and gathered around her, the wind buffeting them even more violently now that they huddled atop the mesa. Lightning blazed across the sky, the first Kendra had noticed since setting out. For a moment, the entire expanse of the mesa flashed into view. In the distance, toward the center, Kendra saw ancient ruins, layer upon layer of crumbling walls and stairs that must once have formed a more impressive pueblo complex than the structure neighboring the hacienda. Briefly her eye was drawn to the movement of many dancers prancing wildly in the rain on the near side of the ruins. Before she could consider the scene, the lighting flash ended. The distance and the darkness and the rain combined to obscure the revelers even from Kendra’s keen eyes. Thunder rumbled, muffled by the wind.

“Kachinas!” Neil cried.

The middle-aged Navajo rapidly loosed Kendra from the climbing gear, not bothering to remove her harness. Lightning flared again, revealing that the figures were no longer engaged in their frenzied dance. The revelers were charging toward them.

“What does this mean?” Warren shouted.

“These are kachinas or other kindred beings,” Neil yelled. “Ancient spirits of the wilderness. We’ve interrupted a ceremony welcoming the rain. We must get to the cover of the ruins. Keep your weapons handy.”

Tammy was having trouble loosening the rope tied to her, so she hacked it away with her tomahawk.

“How do we get there?” Warren asked.

“Not through them,” Neil said, starting to run in a crouch along the perimeter of the mesa. “We’ll try to loop around.”

Kendra followed, not liking the fact that the lip of the precipice was no more than ten yards away. Flashlight beams swayed and bobbed in the rain, making strips of shining drops visible along with oval patches of ground. Kendra chose not to turn her flashlight on; she found the light distracting. She could see at least fifty feet in all directions.

“We’ve got company!” Dougan called, his voice almost lost in the gale. Kendra looked over her shoulder. The beam of his flashlight was trained on a lean, shaggy figure with the head of a coyote. The humanoid creature clutched a staff topped with rattles and wore an elaborate beaded necklace. He threw back his head and howled, a high, warbling cry that pierced the tempestuous night.

Neil skidded to a halt. Ahead of him, blocking their progress, his flashlight lit up an eight-foot-tall, bare-chested oaf wearing a huge painted mask. Or was that his actual face? He brandished a long, lopsided club.

Swiveling, Neil charged toward the interior of the plateau. Suddenly, bizarre figures were everywhere. A tall, feathery being with the head of a hawk seized Tammy by one arm, dragged her several paces, twirled as if hurling a discus, and flung her off the edge of the mesa. Kendra watched in horror as Tammy spun through the air, arms flailing as if she were trying to swim, and disappeared from view. The creature had hurled her so far, and most of the mesa was so steep, that Kendra imagined the stricken woman might freefall the entire way to the bottom.

Kendra dodged away from a leering, humpbacked man carrying a long flute, and found herself in the grasp of a sleek, furry creature with the body of a human female and the head of a bobcat. Crying out, Kendra struggled, but the bobcat woman had a crushing grip on her upper arm and hauled her toward the rim of the mesa. The heels of her boots slid over the slick, rocky ground. She could smell the creature’s wet fur. What would it feel like, plunging toward the ground through the stormy night alongside the raindrops?

Then Gavin appeared out of the darkness, swinging his spear. The bobcat woman yowled and recoiled, dropping Kendra, clawed hands raised protectively, a diagonal wound gaping across her feline face. Gavin stabbed and whirled and slashed, driving the fierce creature back, deftly avoiding counterattacks, slicing and piercing her as she slowly retreated, fangs bared.

From her hands and knees, Kendra saw Dougan wielding his axe to drive back the coyote man. There was Warren, using his spear to keep a gigantic bronze scorpion at bay. And here came Neil, rushing toward her. Glancing over her shoulder, Kendra saw that she was only a few feet from the brink of the lofty precipice. She scrambled away from the edge.

The feathery, hawkish man had joined the bobcat woman in attacking Gavin. Gavin used the butt of his spear to thump the bobcat woman while jabbing with the other end to wound the screeching, feathered attacker.

Neil reached Kendra and hauled her to her feet. “Climb on my back and hold on,” he ordered breathlessly.

Kendra was unsure how Neil would outrun their many enemies with her riding piggyback, but clambered onto him without argument. As soon as her legs wrapped around his waist, he began to change. He fell forward as if he meant to crawl, but did not drop as near to the ground as Kendra expected. His neck thickened and elongated, his ears slid higher on his head, and his torso swelled. In an instant, Kendra found herself astride a cantering chestnut stallion.