4. Three Steps Forward, Nine Steps Back.
Clay was getting mighty tired of this corridor. He'd climbed three staircases, passed hundreds of doors, and clonked his head on three low-hanging chandeliers, all without a single sign of his friends, the Saladin Shield, or an exit. In desperation he'd tried opening a couple of the doors, despite his bad experience with the zombie buffalo. This led to one chase involving a flying serpent, a narrow escape from a wolf-tiger hybrid with a taste for human flesh, and a mishap involving some tiny fairies that actually turned out to be vampires.
All in all, he wasn't having a good day.
"D'ya reckon any of these here doors lead to actual rooms?"
He was getting discouraged. He knew he was still in the fortress, since he'd looked through several windows – all of which refused to open – but he hadn't the foggiest where he was in relation to anything else. He felt like he might have to spend the rest of his days wandering up and down this corridor, until he died from either hunger, exhaustion, or one of the weird rooms' residents got him.
"Why are you asking me?" Dojo slumped onto the brim of his hat.
"Let's face it; we're more lost than a polar bear out on the prairie." Clay sighed. "Sure wish I had the Falcon's Eye with me."
"I wish we had the Serpent's Tail. Then we could just whoosh through the walls without fear of ending up in bite-size chunks. Emphasis on the bite."
"Yeah. Hindsight's right wonderful, ain't it?" Fingering the Third Arm Sash, Clay's brows pulled together. He stood up sharply.
"Hey, watch it down there." Dojo leaned over to look him in the eye. "Something wrong?"
"I think … I think we've maybe been goin' about this all wrong." Clay dashed up to one of the windows and stood with his legs apart, weight distributed evenly so that he would be knocked off his feet. "In a place like this, logic ain't welcome, right? We done learned that the hard way 'cause we tried to shove logic on top of it an' it didn't take. So we gotta think laterally."
"I'm not following you. Though I am intrigued."
"Just watch. Third Arm Sash! Earth!"
The sash rippled and flowed into life, shooting forward with its tassels bunched like a fist. A change came over it as it went, turning it from silky fabric into rough grey stone, which punched straight through the obstinate window. Glass and wood sprayed outwards in thick chunks.
Dojo's mouth formed a small 'o' of understanding. "Ah. Why trek a corridor when you can bypass it from the outside? So … are you going to climb through that?"
Clay observed the small, jagged hole cautiously. He punched out the rest of the window so as not to accidentally slice himself, then brushed damp hair from his eyes at the blast of heat from outside. "I reckon so."
A low moaning noise wafted down the corridor, like a Winter wind under a bedroom door. It intensified with each bit of window Clay smashed, making them feel rather uncomfortable. It sounded not unlike a wounded animal.
"Well, it's only my humble opinion, but I'd say that if you're going to do it, do it quickly," said Dojo.
Clay nodded and braced his hands either side of the broken pane, careful to pick places where there was no glass left to cut up his palms. "Third Arm Sash!" he said, leaving the sash flexible enough to reach right out of the window, feel around and eventually fasten onto a nearby stone gargoyle. When it was secure he bunched his leg muscles, sent up a small prayer, and dived headfirst out of the window.
For a few seconds Clay was in freefall while the slack played out. Then the sash caught his weight with a jerk that would later produce some nice big bruises around his midriff. It dragged him up to grab onto the gargoyle's face and he dangled precariously, more than sixty feet between him and the ground.
"Well, this is … how well did you think out this plan?" Dojo peered myopically at the sheer drop.
"What're you yakkin' about?" Clay huffed, arm muscles protesting loudly and with angry placards, even with the sash's help. "Y'all can fly."
"I – oh yeah. I can, can't I?" The little dragon pulled himself upright. "Once again it's Devastating Dojo to the rescue. I should get my own theme song. Heeere I come to saaave the daaay-"
"Dojo!"
"Right, right. I'll go down a few floors so I don't accidentally knock you off when I reach my magnificent larger shape."
"Gee, thanks."
"Well, here I go." With that, Dojo used his arms to propel himself off the hat and into the air. He fell like a bowling ball wrapped in lead.
Squinting, Clay watched him go. And go. And go. And go.
Aw, crud.
There was the sound of grinding stone next to his ear. Clay's head whipped around as the gargoyle's eyes glowed red. Its jaws opened to reveal rows of sharp granite teeth. It snarled, a noise that sounded like a crypt door sliding open.
Double crud.
To say that things were not going well for Omi would be a heartless underjudgment.
He had travelled far out over the sea of purple vapour, but the ice bridge, like any projected mass, eventually couldn't hold itself up alone. He was forced to wait for many precious minutes while building a series of struts on which to balance it before he could go any further. The first was particularly discouraging because he didn't really know how far down the vapour went before it hit something solid – or even if there was something solid down there to hit.
The teeth-things continued their assault, and he had to break off several times when they attached themselves to his clothes. As a result, his outfit was torn in half a dozen places, ripped in many more, and sported an interesting fashion statement of only one sleeve. His left shoulder carried a half-moon of bites where he had been too slow to stop one creature. The punctures were tiny and hadn't bled much, but the skin around them was puffy and red, and the whole area was starting to throb. Added to this, there was still no sign of a stable destination on which he could land.
Now, after far too long in this place, he was being confronted by Momma Teeth-Thing. Titanic in size and ugly as a man with a sensitive nose after a skunk attack, it had risen from the depths right in front of him, flopping onto his bridge led by a mouth stuffed with fangs like carving knives. In appearance it was just like all the other creatures he'd bested. In sheer bulk it was not. Omi couldn't get past it to continue his bridge, but he couldn't look away to start a new one because every time he did it flailed at him with impossible speed. He'd already nearly lost a hand to those teeth, and rescued the Orb of Tornami milliseconds before it rolled over the edge.
Currently, he was attempting to push the creature back into the vapour via a flurry of punches, flying leaps and powerful kicks, but it didn't seem to be working.
"Please move!"
Momma Teeth-Thing wobbled towards him at speed.
"I cannot be delayed any further! You are in my way! Remove yourself!"
It changed direction and tried to bite his leg.
Omi vaulted over its head and threw a snap-kick at its back. It rolled over, causing him to land on its belly, where he was ensnared by a mass of moving red hair. The hair, thicker and coarser than anything he'd ever come across before, wrapped around his waist, his wrists, his ankles and his neck, and began to reel him in.
Omi's curiosity, oft-times quite removed from the rest of him, wondered whether there was another mouth in its belly, and that was what he was being dragged towards.
He struggled to breathe. He scrabbled at the hair squeezing his throat, but it caught at his fingers, apparently with the intention of pulling them clean off his hands. Black dots began to appear at the edges of his vision, surrounding the clumps of hair as they waved in his face like they were trying to smother him some more.
I cannot afford this, he thought desperately. I am not ready to be defeated by this flabby monstrosity. He wasn't ready to die, either, but phrasing it as defeat made it seem less irrevocable.
"Tsu … nami … Strike … Water!" he wheezed, hair wadding itself into his mouth.
At once, the essence of his element suffused his veins. He was the deceptive calm of the ocean, the unending motion of the mountain stream, the subtle force of the reservoir and the raw power of a tidal wave. He gathered his limbs together as best he could and twisted, tearing the hair from its roots as a whirlpool drags in unwary swimmers. Momma Teeth-Thing screamed, a high-pitched sound, but by that time Omi was already free and bounding back onto his ice bridge.
Grasping the Orb of Tornami in both hands, he aimed it square and unleashed the full force of a few tons of water. "Orb of Tornami!" It smashed against the upended creature, propelling it sideways off the bridge and a few dozen feet out into the vapour. A massive wave swept across the surface as it hit.
"I believe this is the time I should say that retreat is the better part of vanquishing. Or something like that."
He built bridge like he'd never built bridge before, lengths of limp red hair still hanging off him. The Orb warmed in his hands. For the first time, Omi had qualms about just how much water he had at his disposal within it. At a push, he could recall some of the ice already used and shape it in front of him, but he worried that he was questioning the power of his Shen Gong Wu. He only did that when he was especially troubled.
He hoped Momma Teeth-Thing wouldn't follow him. He also hoped there were no more similar creatures lurking about. He was tired and sore and wanted nothing more than to grab the Saladin Shield and go home.
After a short while something wide and grey appeared on the … well, a horizon needed a sun, but in the absence of that Omi was doing his best. He headed towards it, not having a better place to go.
For the umpteenth time since he'd arrived in the bathroom he wished he'd brought the Golden Tiger Claws instead of the Orb of Tornami. The Xiaolin Dragons-in-training customarily only took one Shen Gong Wu each on missions, for travelling and weight reasons, though there had been exceptions to this rule in the past. Unfortunately, today was not one of those exceptions, and he had gone for his favourite item when he went down to the vault with the others. Now he wished he'd had more forethought, even though there was no way he could have predicted anything like this happening.
This place, this fortress was magic unlike anything he'd had to deal with before. It was unstructured, insofar as he usually knew what he was up against when he got caught up in some magical field or other. There was usually a defined enemy, be it Jack Spicer, Wuya, Katnappé, Pandabubba, or any other foe faced since the Shen Gong Wu started activating. This time he didn't know what was going on, who was doing it, or why. He was – if you'll pardon the pun – completely at sea. It made him edgy.
I must organise my thoughts, he told himself as he neared the looming grey mass. A true Xiaolin warrior is focussed and resolute. He does not let himself be distracted by small matters.
His life had been full of small matters since the other Dragons came to the temple. He never would have thought he'd actually enjoy being distracted from his calling.
At last the grey shape resolved itself. It turned out to be a freestanding wall, floating on the purple vapour much like the bathroom he'd left. In the centre was a door with a handle and no lock or latch. Omi halted his bridge in front of it, squinting. Rather than open it straight away, he leapt with incredible agility onto the top of the wall to see what was on the other side – which turned out to be an identical wall-and-door combo. The wall was really just a strip of breezeblocks. The curious thing was that the hinges of the door were on the right on either side.
Should not these hinges be on the left, if they are opposite sides of the same door?
The wall was too thin to have two separate doors embedded in it. Curious, Omi scooted down the other side of the wall and, making sure to keep his body out of the way of anything that might blast, fire, squirt, gust, explode, or excrete on him, opened the anomalous door. It swung outward to reveal a jungle, replete with hanging vines, huge-leafed foliage and different birdcalls hanging in air thick as molasses with humidity. Somewhere close by there was a roar.
Omi quickly shut the door and retreated to the top of the wall. He measured the width of the bricks with his hands, even though it was obvious that the door must be some sort of portal, like those created by the Golden Tiger Claws. You couldn't fit a whole jungle into six inches of brick. Heck, you couldn't even fit a scrap of jungle into that.
The door he'd first approached swung open onto a white-walled hallway bordered by doors with wire-latticed windows; the kind favoured by schools to prevent too much damage by overzealous ballgames. There was nobody about, but there was also no roaring, and the air was a comfortable temperature. He shut it anyway.
Omi perched on top of the wall to consider things. He knew he had to go through one of the portals. His other options were to keep building ice bridges until he came across something better – and there was no guarantee of that happening – to go back to the bathroom, or to sit there and do nothing. None of those appealed, but he was uncertain which portal to choose. The white-walled hallway seemed infinitely more attractive. His shoulder hurt, and he didn't fancy having to fight any unfriendly wildlife so soon after Momma Teeth-Thing and her smaller, but no less toothy brethren. However, if there was one thing he had learned, it was that the easier choice is often the wrong one.
And then there was the magic to think about. Magic made things complicated. Who knew why it had put these portals here? Who knew who was controlling the magic in the first place? Who knew anything about this strange place?
The others might. Only he wasn't with the others, which was the whole idea of going through a portal, to try to find them. And that wasn't going to win any Best Idea of the Year Award, since jungles weren't supposed to exist inside houses, and he didn't want to be dumped somewhere on the other side of the planet.
In this case, the easier choice was also the most logical – if logic could be warped enough to fit this situation. Omi climbed down the wall for the last time, spent a few moments just looking into the white hall, and then swung inside.
"Man, this stinks. Literally."
The sewer reeked. Magical destination or not, it was still a sewer. Raimundo trudged along in a haze of disgust. He'd been walking for quite some time, but there had been no turns, no ladders, and no manholes overhead. He found that odd, but it wasn't like he'd had much experience in sewers for comparison, so he just walked. And complained. A lot.
That might have been why he didn't notice the slight ripple around the floating stick he'd just walked past. Wrapped in his own little world of revulsion and indignation, he didn't have much time to be examining stupid sticks. Not even when they twitched and slid beneath the water in an altogether scaly way.
"I'll bet the others are doing really cool stuff. Or I'll bet they've already found the Saladin Shield, and they're just sitting around wondering why I wasn't there to help. Here comes Raimundo, late to the party – again. How come you fell behind this time, Rai? Oh, I don't know, guys. It might be because I've been taking a stroll in a freaking cesspit." He sniffed his tee-shirt. "Oh yeah. So getting burned when I get out of here. And I don't even want to know what that stain on my leg is." His shoes squelched horribly.
Something hissed lightly to his right. Then it splashed in a much noisier way. Raimundo turned in time to see a mountain of green-brown flesh rear from the foetid water. Even though it was below his ledge the creature came up to his level while on its hind legs. It was enormous, as were his eyes.
"But I thought alligators in the sewer were just an urban legend," he mumbled in that out-of-touch way that hits when reality has taken an unexpected twist and left a person's brain undulating in its wake.
The alligator opened its massive jaws and lunged at him.
"Eep!" Raimundo threw himself aside, skittering towards the edge of the ledge on his belly. Immediately he did, the alligator tried to pin him with a forearm like a tree trunk. He rolled away. The impact with the concrete left a hand-shaped depression.
It roared.
"Wait a second, is it you or the crocodile that can't make a noise?"
The alligator eyed him beadily. It had a gaze that could melt titanium. There was nothing compassionate about that gaze. Everything about it bespoke a hunter, one of the creatures that had remained unchanged for millions of years as the world evolved around them because their bodies were already perfect killing machines.
Raimundo saw that look, recognised part of it, and didn't like it one bit.
He tried to run away. A tail like a steel cable bullwhipped in front of him, leaving a slice through the concrete. He doubled back the way he had come, but the rest of the alligator was climbing out of the water there. It was more than sixteen feet long, with sharp ridges down its spine, and it was scary as hell.
This wasn't a two-bit bad guy with terrible puns and an ego complex. This wasn't even a whole dollar's worth of bad guy with slightly better puns. This was something primal, and it had found and focussed on him as its next snack.
Mulish resolve flooded through Raimundo. I don't freaking think so. I didn't come all this way just to be picked from this thing's teeth. He held out the Sword of the Storm and stood in a ready position, keeping his back to the wall and trying to keep an eye on both the tail and that overlarge mouth. "Bring it, you Jurassic Park reject."
The alligator hissed. It didn't speak, but he sensed its intelligence.
Stillness descended. Neither of them moved, each waiting for the other to be the first. Somewhere, a leaky pipe dripped.
Then the alligator attacked. With impossible speed it shot forward, intending to pin Raimundo to the wall with the tip of its snout. It might have worked, too, had he not leaped high into the air and let it pass harmlessly under him.
Or … less harmlessly than he'd thought when he jumped. The alligator lifted its head straight up in a way he was sure they weren't supposed to do, and opened its mouth, waiting for him to fall into it.
"Sword of the Storm!"
A funnel of wind caught Raimundo, the other end driving down into the alligator's throat at the same time. It gagged, eyes bulging, and he took some grim satisfaction in that. For his part, he landed further up the tunnel and started running as fast as he could, looking for an exit. There was no shame in running away when you had important stuff to do, he told himself.
Behind him, the alligator roared again and gave chase. It was ridiculously fast, arrowing towards him on legs that seemed to go around in circles like in that dumb Roadrunner cartoon. Raimundo had played soccer his whole life, which involved a lot of running. He may have complained a lot about the training, but he had stamina and speed in abundance, and it was still gaining on him.
And me without a handy flamethrower.
He scanned the ceiling for signs of escape. Only now did it register that he hadn't seen so much as a sniff of one since he landed.
Hot breath hit his heels.
"Wind!" Raimundo called on his element, marshalling his chi to guide it through him. From nowhere a strong gust sprang up, buffeting him forwards and giving him an extra burst of speed. He did it again, sustaining the gust this time so that he looked as though he was flying. "Eat my dust, sucker!"
The alligator skidded to a halt.
"Ha ha! Yeah, you know when you're beat, don't you?" Raimundo threw a rude gesture at it and turned to carry on as far as the wind would bear him.
Which turned out to be about seven feet.
A large metal grate spread from one side of the sewer to the other. It was choked with debris and weeds, keeping them – and him – from getting past and into the underground lake beyond.
"Dude!" He pulled up short and landed in the water with a splash. He'd thought it fairly shallow, but it came up to his armpits and stank like a dead cow left in the heat for three days. "Aw, man. No fair!" Frustrated, he waded to the grate and shook it. It clanged, but was too solid to be moved.
Behind him, he heard a low hiss. It might have been his imagination, but it sounded triumphant.
And hungry.
The sign on the wall proclaimed this Ward 23. From what he knew, Omi deduced that this meant he'd landed up in a hospital somewhere. Not wanting to be stranded, he went back to the portal – a door into a broom cupboard here – which he'd wedged open with a fire blanket off the wall.
However, when he reached the broom cupboard it was shut. He opened it, but it was full of buckets, mops, cleaning fluids and the odd spider web. Both portal and fire blanket were gone.
"Oh dear," he muttered, looking around. "I wonder where I am." With no better idea forthcoming, he set off to try and find someone who could tell him. Once he had that piece of information, he could go about constructing a plan to rescue his friends.
He supposed being thrown out of the magical field did have its advantages. The Xiaolin Temple had no phone line, but there was a village not far away that he could perhaps get through to, and somebody could run to the temple from there. Hospitals were supposed to have phones for emergencies, and this was definitely an emergency. Thank goodness Kimiko had let him practise using the confounded things with her cell. He could ask Master Fung what to do, maybe somehow get some more Shen Gong Wu (a fighting chance was always good), or at least get a message through about what had happened.
There didn't seem to be anyone about. Omi hadn't been in many hospitals, so he didn't know what procedure about visitors was. He'd heard Kimiko talk about online newsflashes regarding how they always seemed to be understaffed, so he attributed the lack of activity to that. When he came to a staircase that turned around a corner he started down it without a second thought.
Something with a vaguely feminine shape was coming up the stairs from the floor below. She wore a smart blue nurse's uniform that almost matched the colour of her pockmarked skin. When she looked up and spotted Omi she smiled broadly, exposing multiple rows of teeth that looked like they belonged on the business end of a few hundred rusty scalpels.
"Oh, good. Another patient."
Omi was repulsed by her appearance, but appearances could be deceiving, so he held true to his natural good manners and replied, "I am sorry, but I believe you are mistaken, Miss … ah …" She had no name tag. "I am not a patient at this place of sickness and curing. I am a little misplaced and in search of a telephone - "
"Let's get you in to see the doctor, shall we?"
He blinked. "I am most apologetic, Miss Nurse, but I am not in need of a doctor. I am in need of a telephone."
"Now, now, no need to be nervous. Dr. Pinwheel is the best at what he does." The nurse advanced on him, hands outstretched. They had been hidden behind her back before, but now Omi saw that they were stained with suspicious red spatters. So was the little white apron tied around her waist.
He took a step back up the staircase.
Her smile twitched a bit. "Come now, don't be silly. Everybody has to see the doctor eventually."
"I apologise, but I am perfectly healthy."
That seemed to annoy her. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and shook her head. "And are you qualified to make that judgment? I think not. Now come on, be a good boy. Don't make me sedate you."
Omi took another step backwards, one hand on the banister.
The nurse sprang at him. He caught a glimpse of lengthening nails as he dodged. The narrow stairwell hampered any real acrobatics, but he managed to avoid her by using the banister as a fulcrum and flipping over her head. She turned and brandished fingers at him that were bulging and sharpening. As Omi watched in fascinated horror they became ten hypodermic needles, each one dripping green fluid.
"Be a good boy," the nurse-monster growled, "and take your medicine."
Omi replied by leaping onto the banister and jumping. He hit the storey below with a bone-jarring thud, but absorbed the impact with a roll – enough to stand up and start running almost immediately.
"Stop!" The nurse thundered down the stairs behind him. "The doctor will be very angry if you don't take your medicine!"
He just kept running. A white hallway stretched ahead, lined with unmarked doors on either side and identical to the one he'd just left. He ran past them all, not wanting to slow down and make himself vulnerable just to find he'd opened a door onto a dead end. When he came to another staircase he checked over his shoulder to see how far ahead he was.
The nurse banged on doors as she ran. Several opened, and out of them came more nurses with wide mouths and sharp teeth, whose fingers morphed to scalpels, hypodermics, scissors and other tools as they whooped and joined the chase. All of them wore sensible shoes and neatly pressed uniforms, creating a bizarre crossover image of hospital drama and horror movie.
Oh dear. Omi got to the middle of the stairwell and halted, confronted by more nurses swarming from the hallway downstairs. There were dozens, more than a few of them bearing the same red splatters as the first one he'd met. He didn't even know how they'd known to come to this specific spot; they just homed in on him like children on a new plaything. This does not look good.
And the Understatement of the Year Award went to…
He was boxed in, his only exits filled with nurses. Omi took a deep breath, focussed his mind, brought up his hands and distributed his weight evenly over both legs. The nurses thrust each other out of the way, each one trying to get to him first.
Inexplicably, he suddenly remembered teaching Kimiko and Raimundo how to stand properly, not long after they first came to the temple.
"What?" Raimundo had said. "You crazy, short man? I've been standing for a lot of years. I know what I'm doing."
And Omi, so intent on being a teacher for once instead of a pupil, had shaken his head at them both. "It is not about simply being upright. It is about balance. It is about equilibrium. Clay understands. You need equilibrium to ride a horsey."
"How's a dude like you know words like 'equilibrium'?"
"Nng. Attack me."
"Say what?"
"Both of you. Attack me like you want to hurt me."
Kimiko had rubbed at her arm, hesitant. Already she was developing an overprotective vibe when dealing with him. "But I don't want to hurt you. You might get, y'know, hurt."
"You serious?" Raimundo had demanded. When Omi assented he'd shrugged, muttered, "Your funeral," and plunged at him with the wild abandon of one who wants so badly to prove himself.
Omi laid them both flat with one move. And again when they got up. He never moved from his spot, either. Again and again they threw themselves at him. Again and again he tossed them away like rolled up bits of paper into a wastepaper basket. Only when they were covered in small cuts and bruises, and him without a scratch, did they stumble to their feet and not pile into him.
"Okay, smart guy," Raimundo had said through a fat lip. "Teach us how to stand."
Omi remembered walking around them, telling them to pull their shoulders up because he couldn't reach to do it himself. He remembered straightening their curved spines, lifting Kimiko's chin, changing the angle of Raimundo's hips. It felt strange to them to have all their weight on their thigh muscles instead of their bones. For the first proper time in their lives, each of them was aware of the middle of their feet and the usable space between them. It made them faster, sharper, allowing them to pour themselves from one move into another instead of jigging around like rabbits in snares. They had never forgotten that lesson, though it was one of the few Omi ever gave them. Sometimes, he later realised, it was better to be the pupil than the teacher.
When the nurses flocked towards him he used the same moves he'd taught Raimundo and Kimiko – and later Clay when he asked. Like water flowing from one glass into another, Omi went through a series of fast but controlled movements that defended his balance as well as his body. If you went down in a fight against many opponents you rarely got up again. He knew that. The idea was to stay on your feet and do as much damage as you could, intimidating them, perhaps driving them into making mistakes. If you could keep your head while all others around you were losing theirs…
Yet he was on the defensive, and it is virtually impossible to win a fight that way. Slowly but surely, Omi was forced backwards against the wall, all the time being set upon by hordes of snapping teeth and flashing metal implements.
He ducked. A handful of hypodermics buried themselves in the wall above his head. He kicked out, and a finger-scalpel sliced a chunk out of his costume. He grunted and swung and tossed and struck until his back and forehead were soaked with sweat.
Oh, for Jack Spicer and his easily defeated Jack-bots.
Leaping and spinning in a tight circle, Omi pulled out his Shen Gong Wu. "Orb of Tornami!"
Water flooded the staircase. It buffeted against the nurses, pushing against their ranks. Many were swept away by the sheer force of it; others hung onto the handrail so tight they cut their own palms to ribbons. Of those who did this, those with needles for fingers had their eyes rolling back into their heads as they went.
Omi clung to a light fixture, willing them all far, far away from him, and not halting the Orb until the last screeching blue figure was a fading noise disappearing down the hall. He didn't even know where he'd sent them. Probably just another white hallway. Then he dropped to the floor.
"Orb of Tornami! Ice!"
A thick wall of ice uncoiled from floor to ceiling and completely blocked the stairwell.
Omi let out an exhausted breath. I think … I may be still in the strange fortress somewhere, he thought. He was both pleased and distressed at the notion, but mostly he was tired. His shoulder hurt. When he put the Orb back in his robe his fingers cracked free of it with pieces of ice still on them.
"There you are!" cried a voice.
Omi turned to see the very first nurse trip-trapping down the stairs and stepping daintily over puddles towards him. It was almost obscene for someone that hideous and dangerous to be that graceful.
"You waited for me. How nice. Oh, but someone's had a little accident, haven't they?" She wagged the hypodermic that had once been her index finger. "Naughty. We do have toilets, you know. And bedpans if you can't get that far."
Omi bit back a groan and readied himself again. "As my friend Raimundo would say; you must be toddlering me. Can a noble warrior not rescue his friends without these constant inconveniences?"
"Oh, you want friends?" She smiled even wider and spread her arms. "But we're all friends here. One big happy family, with all the Sisters, Mummy Matron and Daddy Doctor."
Omi took a second to weigh up the pros and cons of it, and then punched her in the jaw. She fell backwards, stunned. He leaped over her and ran back up the stairs, the opposite direction to the one he'd boxed the horde of nurses in.
He needed to find a window. If he was still in the fortress, then he could climb out of a window and get his bearings without being randomly attacked by healthcare employees, purple gases or bloated teeth-things. Also, if he was outside then he could start again from scratch, going in through the front entrance but not into the hexagonal room with the glass ceiling. Maybe then he'd have better luck finding the others and the Shen Gong Wu – although from what he'd seen and experienced so far, he was rather more worried about his friends than the Saladin Shield.
For the thousandth time that day, he hoped they were okay – or at least having better luck than him.
"Dang it! Let go of me, you varmint!"
Clay struggled against where the gargoyle had a firm grip of his shoulders. He tried once to kick it, but came away with a throbbing set of toes. The fact that he was dividing his attention between it and Dojo wasn't helping. Dojo had plummeted out of sight without even the slightest indication of flight or resizing, and the gargoyle was pulling Clay's shoulders in opposite directions, as though trying to rip him right in two.
"Oh no you don't! Third Arm Sash! Earth!"
The sash rocketed into the side of the gargoyle's head, which smashed. The body it was attached to shuddered and froze. Clay was left dangling uncomfortably from its locked claws.
"Dagnabbit." He stretched out with his toes, trying to touch the ledge it was sitting on. It was just out of reach. He waggled his feet furiously. "I'll bet this sort of thing never happened to Indiana Jones."
"I don't know. Harrison Ford had a knack for getting into trouble on set as much as his character did on digs."
Clay swivelled his head as far as it would go. "Dojo! I done thought you'd forgot how to fly."
Dojo looked affronted. Since his face was so large, the expression was very clear to see. "Me? I'm insulted. I just didn't want to accidentally squish you or anything – although it looks like you found trouble just fine without me. I mean, I was only gone – what, ten seconds? And look what you've done to yourself."
"I didn't 'zactly plan this. Hey, what're you laughin' at?"
Against all propriety, Dojo had a hand over his mouth to hold in a snigger. "You look like a trussed up turkey. Or one of those moving ducks you have to shoot to win a prize at the fair."
"Har de har har. I reckon there should be less yakkin' here, an' more helpin' me get free."
"What? Oh, sure." Dojo clasped Clay around the waist with one hand and casually snapped the gargoyle off at the legs with the other. His strength was impressive. Clay was reminded that, though Dojo was a confirmed and loyal ally, he sure wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him in a bad mood.
Dojo carefully crumbled the gargoyle, dropping bits of stone to fall out of sight. It took several minutes and a lot of meticulous picking at the claws. By the time he was done, Clay's back felt three inches wider than when he woke up that morning.
"So what now?" Dojo asked, placing him on his back.
"Well, we gotta find the others first. A Shen Gong Wu's all fine an' dandy, but it means less than onions if'n we ain't all together an' safe."
"Onions?"
"Down-home phrase. Onions ain't worth much." Clay thought for a moment. "Y'all once sniffed out the Serpent's Tail, even though it'd been activated for a long while, right?"
"You know I did. Right before Wuya got her - " Realisation dawned. "Oh. Oh. You want me to find the Shen Gong Wu that Omi, Raimundo and Kimiko were carrying because that'll lead us right to them, don't you?"
"Orb of Tornami, Sword of the Storm an' the Star Hanabi." Clay checked them off on his fingers. "Provided they still got 'em. Think you can do it, partner?"
Dojo took an experimental sniff. "I'll do my darnedest."
"Good. Now let's get, afore any more of those ugly roof ornaments come to life."
Kimiko was no real fan of the dark. She wasn't afraid of it, but when she was a little girl she'd been afraid of what was in it; what it could contain and conceal that even hiding under a blanket wouldn't deter. She'd long since outgrown her nightlight, but everything she'd ever hated about the dark was defined, distilled and purified down in the pits.
The darkness was absolute. The dim glow of her PDA was barely worth the effort. She made her way along primarily by touch, sometimes pausing and lifting her face in case of a breeze that could tell her where the exit was.
"Dumb place," she muttered, stumbling over yet another rock. "Stupid mission. Why couldn't the Shen Gong Wu be in a mall somewhere? Or in a tree outside a mall. That would've been a whole bunch easier. But no, it had to end up in this freaky-deaky hotspot of creepiness instead."
She wanted to hit something – preferably something that wouldn't smash her knuckles to paste.
Her PDA flickered and dimmed.
"Oh, no. No!" Kimiko shook it, which actually seemed to help a little. Still, she looked around with eyes wide, needing an exit now more than ever. She didn't want to be left down here in complete darkness. It was bad enough as it was. She hurried along, stubbing her toes, stumbling and falling a couple of times. "Please don't give out," she pleaded with her PDA. "Please. I'll get you some new batteries as soon as we get home, I promise. Guide's honour."
She'd been thrown out of her Guide Pack after only one month for picking a fight with another girl – one that left her opponent with a broken nose. Mommy had been upset. She'd wanted her to have more extracurricular activities she could boast about. Some of Daddy's best business clients were British – but not the kind who drank in pubs, watched TV and said "Buggering hell!" when they hurt themselves. These were stuffy men in perennial grey suits, who put on airs and graces because they felt they ought to conform to stereotypes in order to be taken seriously. As a result, they laid a lot of importance on the Guide Association. It cultivated little girls who were sweet and innocent; who sang campfire songs while toasting marshmallows, and took care packages to the elderly; and who most definitely didn't fight.
Kimiko stood still. She was sure she'd heard something. She waited, in case it came again.
Sure enough, a low 'swush-swup' filtered though the darkness. It sounded like a spoon trying to mix especially thick batter.
"The heck…?" she mumbled, moving towards it.
It was the ultimate slasher movie cliché – clueless girl goes towards odd noise, ready for the killer to jump out and show her what her entrails look like. The only difference was that Kimiko wasn't some ditzy blonde – well, maybe sometimes she was blonde, but strictly the non-ditzy kind – and she was fairly certain she could take down some hick in a mask without dying. She'd faced down a powerful Heylin witch, stone golems, endless hostile robots and the odd evil megalomaniac. Plus, the darkness was closing in as her PDA dimmed, and the noise was as good a sign as any that there might be light at the end of this tunnel.
'Swush-swup' went the noise. Faintly, but still there.
Closer crept Kimiko.
Then – there! A slight breeze, no more than a whisper really, but enough to give her hope. A way out, perhaps. Some path out of the pits, or at least out of the darkness.
Kimiko hurried forward. She felt her way around a wide corner and found herself facing a wall of solid rock.
Oh … nutbunnies.
There was a small tunnel near the floor. She'd have to get down on her hands and knees to fit through it, but it was emitting the breeze she'd felt. Hesitantly, she crouched and allowed the gentle puffs of air to caress her face and neck. The air was warm, probably made so by all the compressed rock it had touched, but it moved enough to make her nibble her lip and cast about so she could at least go through the motions of looking for another option.
It's either this or go back to the very start and walk the other direction. That would eat up valuable time, plus it could potentially lead to another position just like this one, if not worse.
The final decision was made by her PDA, which flickered and died, plunging her into complete blackness. Sucking up her courage – which she was not short of, even if she applied it improperly sometimes – she started to crawl.
The tunnel was narrow – very narrow. At several points Kimiko was forced to dip her head and wriggle along on her belly, using only her elbows to pull the rest of her body forward like some soldier avoiding overhead shells. Once, the floor dropped downwards in a steep decline, but for the most part it was a series of even gradients and inclines.
She worried a little that what she was breathing might be a combination of poisonous gasses, or that she might find herself trapped in here should there be a cave-in. Some of the rocks along the way looked very unstable, as though breathing on them too hard might cause them to come loose. The darkness was also a problem. In so small a space, and without her PDA, she literally couldn't see what was in front of her face. She scraped and scratched and grazed her skin, knocking her head when she tried to go too fast. However, the light touches of breeze made her force these doubts away and press on. Her progress was slow, but she made progress, and that was the main thing.
Eventually, as with all things, the tunnel came to an end. Kimiko reached the mouth after a steeper incline than usual and paused to look out of it. She appeared to have come out in the floor somewhere – where, she had no idea, but there was light out there. Light!
She scrambled free, pulling herself up and out with arms that felt like they could throw a shot-put clean out of the Olympic Stadium. The next few moments were spent wobbling and blinking, as her muscles relaxed and her eyes became accustomed after so long in the dark.
She was in a large cavern. The ceiling was riddled with small holes, through which shone pinpricks of light. Each shaft was thin and yellow, but they illuminated the cave well. Kimiko gazed around, enchanted by the way the shadows were shaped and stabbed through by tiny yellow swords. It was like an arrangement of fairy lights over a front porch, beating back the darkness so you could cross the threshold safely. An overwhelming part of her wanted to just curl up and go to sleep after the exertions she'd gone through to get here.
"Oh man," she muttered, lips dry. She reached for the canteen at her waist, a little surprised – but pleased – to find it still attached.
When she took it away from her lips the rim was covered in a black sludge of coal dust and water. Experimentally, she touched her cheek, but it was impossible to tell how dirty her face was, since her hands were also black. There was an acrid aftertaste in the back of her throat.
"Man, I so need a bath. Maybe when I find Omi he can just use the Orb of Tornami to blast all this icky stuff off me."
Thinking of Omi renewed her concern from her friends – suppressed while in the tunnel, where panic could have been lethal. Kimiko looked at the holes in the ceiling, wondering where they led; wondering if her friends were anywhere up there in the light. She didn't even know how far down she still was. There was at least forty feet of dead space between her and the cavern roof, and it wasn't like she had a handy elevator available. She wished Omi had taught her how to walk on walls like him. It really was a useful trick – and she was sure someday she'd be able to say the same thing about walking on just two fingers, too.
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she completely failed to notice something black and gungy clinging to the walls of the cavern.
Something black and gungy that quivered, expanded to the size of a large pumpkin, and then slowly slithered along the wall towards her.
Swush-swup.
To Be Continued …