Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow (21 page)

As Jake moved through the tunnel, he ran a finger along one wall. The stones fit perfectly, but rather than stacked, they were fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each block an irregular shape. Still, the stone seams were so smooth that he doubted he could slide a razor blade between any of the blocks.

The light grew brighter ahead. Jake felt a pulse in the air, as if something were squeezing his chest, releasing it, then squeezing again. With each step, the sensation grew.

Pindor rubbed at his stomach, feeling it there. Despite the danger, Marika’s brow pinched with curiosity. Only Bach’uuk seemed unfazed. But he had been here before.

The hall continued to angle downward, but the end appeared to be just ahead. The pulse grew more intense, the glow even brighter as the passageway opened into a cavernous chamber, domed like the Astromicon.

Jake stopped, awestruck by what lay ahead.

A perfect sphere of crystal hung in the center of the chamber. It spun slowly in place, suspended in midair under the roof of the dome. It glowed steadily, but Jake felt that pulse burst out with each full spin.

The crystal heart of Kukulkan!

The pulse was its heartbeat.

As Jake’s eyes grew accustomed to the glow, he saw something else that surprised him. The sphere was really
three
spheres, one inside the other, like Russian nesting dolls. Two layers spun in opposite directions: one spun left to right, the other right to left. The third spun from top to bottom. Strange letters were carved across the surface of all three spheres and spun to form all manner of combinations, like some crystal computer.

Marika crept forward and passed between Pindor and Bach’uuk. Her eyes were huge. The floor sloped down to form a bowl under the crystal heart. Below the spinning sphere were three miniature versions of the larger one. One emerald, one ruby, one sapphire blue.

The three primary colors of light again.

Jake glanced at his silver apprentice badge. The same three stones formed a triangle around the diamond. He realized the pattern must be a miniature version of the layout here. The diamond represented the crystal heart. The colored gems stood for the three smaller spheres.

Fascinated, he stared back at the center of the room.

Below the giant crystal heart, the small spheres spun in place, like small moons trapped in orbit by the larger planet above—or rather
two
of them spun.

The emerald crystal seemed to wobble, and while the others glowed with their own inner light, the green sphere was dull and dark. Something was definitely wrong with it.

The cause for that became apparent when shadows boiled out of a hallway on the far side of the dome. They fluttered around a humanlike shape, but details were impossible to pick out. They cloaked the figure completely and spat around him like black flames.

It had to be the assassin Bach’uuk had seen fleeing Kalakryss.

Jake withdrew to the shelter of the passageway and drew Marika with him. The shadowy man—if it was a
man
—knelt by the green crystal and placed two hands over its surface. From his fingers, darkness flowed and sank into the emerald stone. The wobbling grew more erratic.

The assassin was doing something to restrain or possibly destroy this one sphere. But why? To what end? Jake
remembered Marika talking about
the gifts of Kukulkan
, her description of the field cast out by the pyramid, how it granted a common language to all, protected the valley against dangers, and kept the crystals in the valley powered.

Three gifts…three colored spheres

Two gifts still worked—language and the power of the crystals—but not the third. Not the barrier. Jake now knew how the Skull King’s forces had penetrated the valley’s defenses. He was staring at it. This creature had weakened the barrier at its source—he had poisoned the emerald sphere.

He had to be stopped or the entire valley would be destroyed.

Jake stepped out. He rose to his toes and flicked on his penlight. If he moved quietly, he could catch the shadowy assassin by surprise. And with the reach of the penlight’s beam, he wouldn’t even have to get that close. It was worth the risk.

Jake lifted a hand to warn the others to stay back. He had continued a few steps farther when a piercing cry rose from the grakyl horde outside. Jake cringed at the triumphant keen to their wails. He feared what that might mean for everyone in the valley. But at the moment, it meant disaster for Jake.

The shadowy figure, perhaps curious about the noise, glanced toward the entrance. His swirling face swung
straight at Jake. Jake froze as if struck by the beam of his own penlight. The creature sprang up, carried by the shadows beneath him. He rushed straight at Jake.

Jake finally reacted and raised his penlight. He shone it straight at the pool of shadows that hid the figure’s face. The freezing light burned through the shadows. The darkness flowed away from the beam like water.

The creature shied to the side. Jake almost caught a glimpse of the face behind the mask—then the beam from his penlight flickered and died.

Panicked, Jake shook the flashlight. He got it to shine for another second, then it blinked off again. The shadows poured back over the face and swallowed the features away.

The figure cast up both arms and shadows boiled out from his form and washed over Jake’s lower body. His legs went immediately cold. The shadows thickened to the consistency of tar. He couldn’t move.

“Jake!” Marika cried out to him.

“Stay back!” he yelled.
Or we’ll all be trapped.

The creature seemed to have no trouble wading through the shadows toward Jake. Though the figure had no face, Jake imagined a vicious smile.

Words flowed out, muffled by the shadows: “You survived my trap. My master will be pleased. He has grand plans for you.”

Jake didn’t know what the creature was talking about.
He frantically shook his penlight, but the batteries had completely failed.

Jake heard feet running behind him. He glanced back and saw Marika, Pindor, and Bach’uuk sprinting to his aid, aiming straight for the pool of shadows. They hadn’t listened to him. Emotions warred inside him. He was both selfishly relieved, while at the same time terrified for his new friends.

Pindor hit the pool of shadows first, and his legs went out from under him. He fell face-first into the black pool. Bach’uuk and Marika used the boy’s body like a bridge. Bach’uuk was in front and when he reached Pindor’s shoulders, he twisted, grabbed Marika by the waist and threw her toward Jake. She flew over the pool and landed two steps behind him—then she sank to her waist like Jake.

She tried to take a step, hauling her upper body, but she could not move. The entire bit of their gymnastics seemed only to amuse the shadowy creature. A muffled chuckle flowed, but it held no warmth, only ice.

“The Magister’s daughter and the Elder’s son. And a young Urling. You few think to thwart the Skull King?”

Again that dark laugh.

“Jake…” Marika said behind him.

He glanced back. Marika held one hand to her throat and tapped a finger under her chin, as if signaling him. He didn’t know what she meant. Her other hand rose from behind her back. In her fingers, she held a long slender
rod, tipped by a fiery crystal. It was her father’s dowsing stick.

She held it out toward Jake, out of sight from the shadowy creature. Marika again tapped at her throat.

Then Jake remembered. Bach’uuk had described one feature that his sharp eyes had picked out of the shadowy form as the assassin fled Kalakryss. A clasp at the throat, decorated with a chunk of bloodstone.

Jake turned and faced the sculpture of shadow. Marika slipped the wand into the hand Jake hid behind his back. He lifted his chin and stared as the figure closed the distance.

“Though the master wants you,” it hissed, “that doesn’t mean I can’t make you suffer for your trouble. And what better way to make you suffer than to see one of your friends die?”

The creature pointed an arm. Jake risked a glance and saw Pindor struggling to pull himself out of the black pool. He had got his head out and gasped for air. Then the shadows rose over his friend’s body, flowing up and filling his nose and mouth, leaving only his eyes above the darkness. Pindor twisted in fear. His mouth stretched in a silent scream as he tried to draw air.

Jake shoved around and faced the shadow-cloaked monster. “Let him go!”

Jake drew back the creature’s attention. It wanted to savor his pain. But when it turned its head, Jake spotted
the glint buried in the shadows. A chunk of blackness darker than any shadow. The bloodstone clasp.

Jake whipped his arm around and stabbed out with Balam’s dowsing stick. The crimson crystal cut through the shadows and reached the black stone. With a touch, the bloodstone seemed to jump. A tiny scream flowed as a fiery light burst from the wand’s tip. Jake blinked away the glare and saw the chunk of bloodstone had gone dead white, drained of its power.

“No!”
the creature moaned, echoing the cry from the stone.

The shadows collapsed like a wash of snowmelt after a sudden thaw. Jake stumbled free as the pool around him turned from tar to thin air. He fell back into Marika, but they kept their footing. Pindor coughed and choked, but he was still alive. Bach’uuk helped him to his feet. Pindor picked up his sword and lunged groggily forward. He pressed the tip of his sword over the heart of the assassin.

With the bloodstone clasp undone, the shadows melted away from the cloaked figure. Blackness flowed down and revealed a pale face and an overly large belly.

“Magister Oswin!” Marika gasped.

He showed no remorse, only disdain and disgust.

“Why?” she begged.

“Why not?” he scoffed, curling a lip.

“But you’ve always served Calypsos.”

A hard laugh escaped him. “No. I’ve always served
Kalverum Rex, my true master. Since I was an apprentice, I served him, recognized his brilliance. Someone not frightened to delve into alchemies that others shunned. He found a dark path to godhood, and I was allowed to follow him.”

“Then why didn’t you leave with him when he was banished?” Marika asked, her face pale and sick.

Again that wicked smile bloomed. “While others were allowed to go with him, he forced me to remain behind. To be his eyes and ears. To bide a time when he could again return!”

“So you were his spy!” Pindor said, and poked his sword enough to get the prisoner to wince.

“And his saboteur,” Jake added with a nod toward the murky emerald sphere.

“All these years…” Marika said.

“Such gullible swine.” He spat on the floor. “You know nothing about this land here! Nothing about the forces that close even now around you. With but a word—” He suddenly twitched and gasped. He stared down at his feet.

The shadows had pooled there like a discarded cloak. But they did not lie limp. Around the Magister’s feet, the shadows began to churn like a whirlpool.

“No, Master!” he moaned.

Oswin’s legs began to sink into the inky whirlpool. His eyes got huge and panicked. His face suddenly twisted in
pain. A scream burst from his throat. Not pleading this time—pure agony. Oswin attempted to lunge out of the churning pool, but he was caught as surely as Jake had been before. He sprawled on the floor.

They all backed away.

The black tide pulled his body deeper, sucking him away. His fingers clawed at the smooth stone floor, but he could gain no purchase. His face screwed up into a mask of pain and terror.

“No! Not like this!”

Marika took a step toward him. Jake held her back. The fiend might drag her with him.

“My father,” she pleaded. “What happened to him?”

Oswin seemed not to hear her, or simply didn’t care. His fingers left bloody tracks as he was sucked into that black churning maw. He vanished with one final scream of terror.

Marika turned away and pressed her face into Jake’s shoulder. He put an arm around her. The whirlpool continued to churn, but like water flushing down a bathtub drain, it was quickly gone, leaving nothing but the smooth stone floor.

They all took a moment to steady themselves. Pindor poked his sword at the floor, as if testing its solidity. Jake kept his arm around Marika. They moved shakily forward and passed under the crystal heart of the temple. Jake knelt by the emerald sphere. It no longer even wobbled.
Deep within the stone, where the other spheres glowed, this crystal was dark—no, not just dark, it was
black
.

A solid piece of shadow rested at the heart of the stone.

Jake carefully placed a palm on the surface. It was cold, but nothing more. He placed his other palm on it. He could fathom no way to clear out the poisoning darkness within. There was no way of reaching it with Balam’s dowsing stick, not through solid crystal. And Jake’s penlight had no more juice. They could not even try shocking it.

Jake glanced to Marika. She shook her head. They needed a true Magister, not two apprentices.

Pindor stared back toward where Oswin had been sucked away into the void. “He betrayed us all. But I guess it makes a certain strategic sense.”