Underworlds #3: Revenge of the Scorpion King (4 page)

E
XCEPT THAT THE BOLT OF SILVER LIGHT DIDN’T
actually hit me. It flashed so close to my face that I thought I had died. Or gone blind. Or both.

But when I looked up, Loki was stunned, wobbling unsteadily. Dana was on her knees behind me, the armored glove on her hand smoking. “That was the last time!” she said. “I can’t do this anymore —”

“Then I will,” Loki said, collecting himself and striding toward us, his silver hand sparking wildly.

Not thinking, I jumped up and ran right at Loki. I swung the lyre at his glove just as it flashed.

THONK!
The lyre struck him, and his blast went wild. A lyre string snapped back in my face, cutting my cheek. Dana jumped up, grabbed my shoulder, yanked me around, and pushed me toward the moonlight.

Fire Serpent was tired of waiting. He leaped across the swamp at us, shrieking wildly. That was the note. I hoped that the lyre string that had snapped wasn’t the one I needed now. It wasn’t. The note I struck quivered like an arrow striking its target.

EEEE!
The serpent crashed into the swamp with a horrible screech, splashing flaming green water over Loki. Dana and I sloshed over to Panu, where Jon and Sydney tugged us up through the opening and outside on the sixth level of the tower.

This level was a thick jungle of vines and trees and gargantuan blossoming plants, shimmering dark green and silver in the moonlight.

I gulped in the hot night air, trying to catch my breath, feeling dizzy.

“The summit,” said Sydney, pointing beyond the highest trees to a narrow stone turret that rose high over everything like a factory smokestack.

“Do you want to rest?” asked Panu, his eyes wide with fear. We must have looked pretty bad. “You guys seem … well …”

Kaaaa!
Birdman circled slowly over the trees, searching for us, his black eyes scanning the jungle for any sign of movement. We were in his territory now.

I climbed to my feet and peered down at the vast, dark desert below. I could hear sounds coming from the level beneath us — the blasts from Loki’s glove, the serpent screeching at the top of his lungs, the silence as Loki’s runes overwhelmed him.

I thought about how many good people were in danger because of Loki’s terrifying war — our families, our home, the whole world. And they didn’t even know it.

There was no time.

I turned back to face the others. “That was our rest. We have to get to the Tablets of Destiny before Loki wraps his evil hands around them. Now we climb.”

No one objected. They knew we had to keep going.

We tramped through the jungle until we came to a clearing that nearly surrounded the turret. Only a few scattered trees and tangled vines would cover us from above. When I saw Birdman dive to the clearing, rip up one small tree with his beak, and chew it into nothing, it was obvious that he’d made the clearing to keep anyone from reaching the summit.

“You realize that creepy bird will spot us the instant we leave the trees, right?” Sydney said. “We’re going to have to run really fast.”

Jon nodded quietly. “I don’t know about running, but I’ll try.” He turned to Dana. “Do you think you can?”

Her face was lined with pain, her arm hung limp at her side, the once-silver glove now gray and lifeless. But when she took a deep breath and said, “I’m ready,” I knew that Dana was a true hero, and I was so proud to be with her.

“Okay, then?” I said.

And just like that, we broke through the trees and out into the open, rushing, stumbling, and hurling ourselves across the clearing. Even though he was high in the sky, it took less than an instant for Birdman to spot us. With a mocking shriek and insane speed, he dived. As he came closer, I could see that his beak was two feet long from base to point and red as blood, streaked with dark ribbons of black.

Angry human eyes, large and dark and shadowed, stared out beneath a brow of bone and feathers as red as the beak.

“KAAAA!” Birdman snarled. Flames licked the tip of his beak.

I so wished that Dana’s glove was working, but all we had was the damaged lyre. With a big
whoosh
, Birdman swooped, his daggerlike talons flashing. We scattered across the clearing, but the wind from his wings almost blew us right off the edge of the tower. We zigzagged as if we were racing through a minefield until we reached the turret.

“Up! Up!” Jon said. “It’ll be easy for Birdman to pick us off, so we have to climb fast!”

Great idea. But when we grabbed the vines coiling up the side of the turret, they were so sharp they sliced our fingers. You know, because being attacked by a monster wasn’t deadly enough.

Circling upward to gain speed, Birdman then dived at Sydney and Jon. His razor talons swiped and grasped, and flame flickered from his beak.

I kicked out at his head. He recoiled, then lunged at me, opening his beak wide and clamping it shut just inches from my arm. I felt the hot breeze on my face.

“No, you don’t!” Dana yelled. She swung her gloved fist with the force of a hammer and struck Birdman where his ugly beak met his even uglier head.
Crack!
The upper beak split and flames leaked out. Birdman twisted back in pain, seized the glove on Dana’s hand, and pulled.

She screamed.

Birdman hooted in victory. I twisted the tuner on my lyre to match the pitch of the sound and slammed on the string as hard as I could. As the note rang in the air, Birdman screeched but didn’t let go of Dana’s hand. Sydney grabbed Dana by the waist. Jon swung his foot out and kicked Birdman where his beak was cracked.

Birdman pulled back for a second.

Loki’s glove was in his beak.

Dana cried out and went limp. Jon and Sydney held her close to the tower to keep her from falling. Birdman flapped in a rage nearby, but he wouldn’t come any closer because of the sound of the lyre. He finally scratched the air harmlessly, then fluttered away, Dana’s glove still in his beak.

“Dana, are you all right?” I called frantically.

She came to and stared at her hand, then at us. “I’m free …” she said. “I’m free. Come on!”

Just then, Loki emerged from the level below. His rune’s silver glow enveloped Birdman, and the beast fluttered down to him, dropping the glove at his feet.

“Keep going!” Dana cried, taking the lead, her hand scratched red and raw. “One last climb, and we’ll be on the summit.”

After what seemed like hours, we made it to within a few feet of the top. I paused to catch my breath, but there was no time. Instead, I grabbed a vine and wrapped it around my hand. Finding footing, I tugged myself up.

Even in the unfamiliar night air of the desert, the air on the summit smelled strange.

Then I remembered that smell. It was the unmistakable scent of scorpion venom.

A
RING OF TORCHES BLAZED AROUND THE EDGE OF
the high parapet.

The Scorpion King stood in the midst of them, his giant head hanging low. As far as I could tell, he was staring at the exact center of the summit roof, at a stone carved with exotic characters.

Panu bowed before him. “My king!”

I stood next to Dana, Jon, and Sydney, hundreds of feet above the ground, while the dark Babylonian Underworld stretched for miles beneath us.

Loki shouted at the top of his lungs from the level below. A flash of silver light arced over the summit.

Then Birdman appeared overhead, a rune around his neck. With a screech, he dived down to the ground below, where the five other beasts stood with Fenrir. I knew they all had runes around their necks now. They were all under Loki’s power.

“Loki’s close,” said Jon.

“Kingu,” said Dana, stepping up to face the Scorpion King. “Loki’s used his runes to subdue every beast so far, but if he gets the Tablets of Destiny, he’ll control them forever. Don’t betray us. Help us stop him —”

Before she could finish, the tower shook, the air rippled with energy, and Loki appeared. He stared at Kingu, then at us, then at the carved stone in the floor.

“And here we are,” said Loki. He had obviously waited until he had an audience to slide his reclaimed glove on his hand. It enveloped his arm and sent a ripple of energy across his armor from head to toe. “Ah. Complete at last. My armor restored.”

“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen,” Sydney whispered.

“It’s the Underworld,” said Loki, his thin lips curling into a grin. “Nothing works the way you want it to. Come with me, Dana Runson. I have not finished with you.” He grabbed her bleeding hand.

Jon, Sydney, and I stepped toward him, but Loki raised his glowing fist menacingly. “Don’t be foolish. You children have already lost.” He circled us slowly, pulling Dana with him. “With both the Scorpion King and me against you, you have no choice but to submit to our power.”

Nearby, the Scorpion King’s stingers hovered like a pair of deadly puppets on strings. The points were swollen with venom. We’d already seen what damage they could do.

They were two gods of awesome power, each with his own mission of revenge.

And we were smack in the middle.

“And now to the real business,” Loki said. “Kingu, where are the seventh beast and the Tablets you promised?”

Without lifting his head, the Scorpion King spoke. “That is the saddest part of my curse. The seventh beast is my own son, Ullikummi, Man of Stone.”

“And where is he?” asked Loki. His armor gleamed coldly in the last threads of moonlight, and the air around him was as icy as a freezer.

“Ullikummi joined me in battle,” Kingu said. “He was cursed to this place with me. But the great god Marduk’s spite was such that he sealed my son here, in a tomb on this summit. A tomb I have not seen until this day. My Ullikummi.”

Kingu spoke his son’s name as if it were an incantation.
Ullikummi.

“A sad story, no doubt,” said Loki with a sneer. “I shall regret not having your son join me. But I am here for the Tablets of Destiny. Where are they?”

Kingu’s great pincers clenched and unclenched as he spoke. “The Tablets of Destiny lie under the stones in Ullikummi’s arms, lost to me, lost to the world, lost …”

In that moment, Loki’s expression turned from fake sympathy to a cold, hard, deadly look of rage. “What do you mean,
under the stones
?”

Kingu did not respond. He only repeated his last word over and over softly until it drifted into silence.

Lost … lost … lost …

Panu looked at me then at the lyre, and I swear my brain flashed with lightning.

Lost?

Only what is lost can be found.

Kingu didn’t shift his dark eyes from the stone. “I have not seen his grave since I was cursed. By subduing the beasts to your power, Loki, you have made it possible for me to ascend the tower. I must thank you….”

“
Thank
me?” Loki spat. “You can
thank
me by giving me the Tablets of Destiny! Raise them up from the ground if you have to —”

“Can you raise the dead?” said Kingu.

Standing with his back to the falling moon, Kingu was deep in shadow, his eyes invisible under the helmet of his insectlike head.

“Can you return what is lost?” he went on quietly.

The lightning flashed in my brain for a second time, and I suddenly became a genius.
Only what is lost can be found.
It all made sense! Each level of the tower had its own tone, its own musical note. That was part of the riddle and the curse. All the notes together made up a chord of notes.

The lost chord of legend.

Loki fumed, his fingers sparking like mad. “I want those Tablets of Destiny now!”

Panu stepped over to me, Jon, and Sydney. “This is the second riddle!” he whispered. “Kingu needs the lost chord!”

Looking down at the lyre in my hands, I realized something. “I only have six working strings … but the seventh beast has no note. He’s buried. He’s silent!”

Jon’s eyes widened. “Owen, strum the lyre —”

So I did.

I played the six-string chord, with each string in its new tuning, and they vibrated with the notes of each level of the tower. Over and over I strummed the strings, creating a sound that swept over all of us, across the summit, down to the stones under our feet.

And under the stones, too.

“Stop that noise!” Loki snapped. “It hurts my —”

He didn’t have a chance to finish before the roof beneath our feet rumbled violently and split apart, throwing us back on our heels. Then arose a giant man of stone.

He smelled like wet sand and roots and moss and damp stone. His gargantuan arms bulged with stone muscles. His feet were three feet long from heel to toe. The stones of his joints ground together when he moved.

Loki staggered. “The seventh beast —”

In his massive, stony hands the giant cradled two flat stones carved with words that smoked as if they had just been written by a lightning bolt.

“The Tablets!” Loki said.

“Ullikummi stands before you, alive once more!” the giant thundered as he raised the smoking tablets high over his head. The skies rumbled when he spoke.

“Give me the Tablets of Destiny!” Loki said, his rune stone glowing silver in the night air. “Bow down and give them to me!”

Kingu turned to Loki. Then to us.

He bristled from legs to arms to neck to head. Fire erupted in his yellow eyes.

Then his stingers twitched.