FIVE
Duncan woke up in his underclothes, chained to a heavy table. He knew he could move the table, or maybe even break the wood and pull the chain through, but two troglodyte guards made sure that he didn't move. They prodded him with their sharp spears at the slightest hint of movement.
One of the troglodytes disappeared through the main door. Duncan wondered if he could take down the one guard before he could cry out. He decided against it. The guard was keeping its distance and Duncan's hands were wrapped together in heavy chain. If they would just leave him alone for a few minutes. He looked around the room for something he could use. He recognized this place. It called out to him from somewhere in the back of his mind. Where was he?
The door opened again and Skeletor marched in triumphantly. The overlord of evil's dark face seemed more malevolent than ever, his pale visage more ghastly than Duncan had seen it in his nightmares. Beast Man followed behind him, snarling, his long arms almost dragging along the ground. Duncan had seen Beast Man die, but he was not surprised to see the henchman's return with his master.
Duncan attempted to stand, but the troglodyte guard smashed his knee with the butt of a spear, leaving Duncan kneeling on the ground. The base of Skeletor's Havoc Staff slammed into the ground in front on Duncan's eyes.
"Man-at-Arms," Skeletor growled, "The pleasure is all mine, I'm sure."
"Curse you, Skeletor. We defeated you once. We will do it again," Duncan spat defiantly.
"Of course." Skeletor nodded, circling his prisoner. "Do you know where you are?"
Duncan looked again. With the door open, more light streamed in from the outside. He recognized the small fortress they had built to protect Castle Grayskull.
"How?" he choked. "Where is Ram-Man?"
"Don't concern yourself with that, Man-at-Arms. Instead, you should be worried about your family, especially your daughter."
Duncan struggled against his chains. "Where is Teela? What have you done?"
"Let me be the first to congratulate you on the discovery of your long lost child. Evil-Lyn?"
Lyn strode into the room confidently. She had been preparing for this day for a long time. "Hello, Dad," she said, then kicked Duncan across the face. He fell over on his side.
"Evil-Lyn?" he spat. "What trick is this?"
"There's no trick," laughed Skeletor's hollow voice. "Evil-Lyn is your daughter, sacrificed at birth by the Sorceress. I saw in her the magic she would one day master and so I saved her, trained her, and have now brought her to you. The Sorceress has known all along."
"But why? It makes no sense, Skeletor."
"As payment!" Skeletor screamed. "Zodac punished her for loving you by demanding her first born child. The Sorceress tricked Zodac. She gave up Evil-Lyn without a fight, but kept her favored daughter, Teela. She never told you? Pity."
Duncan looked up pleadingly at Lyn. "It's true, Father. I have always followed Skeletor to ultimately get my revenge against my mother, the Sorceress."
"Evil-Lyn… Lyn, I didn't know," Duncan pleaded. "Whatever has happened, it can be fixed. Joining Skeletor is not the right way."
"It's far too late for that, Father." Lyn placed a hand softly on Duncan's shoulder. He looked up at her, questioningly, then felt the sharp burning of his skin as Lyn's hand magically burnt into his skin, searing skin and muscle. Duncan struggled against her, but couldn't pull away. She roughly pushed him down to lie on his side where she kicked him again. "You will be the bait for the mother and sister that I will kill."
Skeletor laughed, a long screeching laugh that forced Duncan to dig his nails into the ground beneath him. When he looked up again, they were both gone.
"Stratos, Mekaneck, this must be kept secret. No one in Randor can no that Skeletor has returned until the Sorceress is back on the throne of Castle Grayskull. One guard managed to escape from Skeletor's assault against our fort there, and his tale is not a good one. Skeletor has taken that fort and slaughtered our men. He stands on the threshold of his dream to take control of Castle Grayskull. What's more, it appears that he has already gathered his henchmen to him. Whiplash attacked the fort. No one knows what happened to Ram-Man, but I fear the worst. You are the only men available to help to me stop Skeletor now. I will not alert the army. We must take Skeletor by surprise, and fight him the way we did years ago." Adam spoke firmly with his friends gathered around him at his private meeting table. The Sorceress sat in the corner of the room, distracted by her weakness and feeling the weight of her failure. Teela sat beside Adam, her hand gripping the serpent staff tightly.
Mekaneck had been a close friend of Duncan's before a blast had nearly killed him. Duncan saved his life by giving him a mechanical neck that he could extend and retract at will. Mekaneck had added a large pair of enhanced goggles to go with the enhancement so that King Randor would accept him back into the army as his lead scout.
Stratos, on the other hand, always pretended that he was there to fight for the fun of it, but he had seen the horrors that Skeletor could inflict on his own people and had vowed to stop the tyrant. His jests were just a cover up for his anger and fear.
"I think it goes without saying that we agree with you," Mekaneck said, his voice was nearly robotic.
"Teela," Adam said, turning the meeting over to her.
"First, thank you for help now. None of us wanted to be back in this position, but it's not hopeless. Skeletor cannot enter Castle Grayskull. The same shielded walls that protect the Eternal Palace were installed as a first line of defense around the castle. No magical or technological force can penetrate the walls that form a protective dome around Castle Grayskull now. That should by us the time we need to stop Skeletor." The two heroic warriors smiled. Finally, some good news.
"There's more," Teela continued. "The Sorceress cannot help us. Her power has been drained. What's more, this was to be the Sorceress' last journey. She meant to retire and pass Grayskull's protection to me. She will be unable to do that for another decade if we cannot get both of us inside Castle Grayskull within the next seventy-two hours."
Stratos laughed. "We can't fly anything into the jungles around Grayskull, certainly not without letting Skeletor know we're coming. You can forget about seventy-two hours."
"There is another way," Teela told him. "We will travel through Orko's realm and reemerge right at the castle's gate. Skeletor will not know we're there until it's too late."
"What about Man-at-Arms?" Mekaneck asked.
"We'll do what we can for my father," Teela told them. "Right now, we don't even know if he's alive." Teela's face betrayed her tormented thoughts.
Stratos let out a low whistle.
"That's all, gentleman," Adam said. "Let's get started."
Skeletor waited until it was dark to renew his attack against Castle Grayskull. He threw everything he could at the prismatic shield that didn't budge. Any more of his power would take time to build up, time he didn't have, and leave him weak for the upcoming battle. "Curse you, Sorceress. What new magic is this?"
Lyn appeared beside her master, seemingly materializing from the shadows of the trees. "I don't believe the Sorceress is to blame for this barrier, Lord Skeletor."
"Oh really. Then who else do you think has power enough to match my own?" Skeletor scoffed, gesturing grandly with his right arm.
"I believe this is the work of my father."
"Impossible," Skeletor said incredulously.
"I have seen a similar barrier through the eyes of my spies protecting the walls of the Eternal Palace. It is his invention—a technological barrier powered by inexhaustible magic."
Skeletor sneered. "It changes nothing. My power cannot break it, and so I know yours will fail just the same. I will torture that fool until he reveals to me the secret of the barrier. When I'm done, he'll be begging to turn it off himself." He took a step away from the small ledge he was standing on. Lyn stopped him.
"Wait," she said. "I may already know the way." She pushed past her gaping master to stand on the ledge he had just left.
Her hands raised to the sky, inaudible words of power whispered from her unmoving lips. Then she pointed. Her magic crawled through the air, unobtrusively sliding through the barrier the way air did, but doing nothing to break the barrier down. Skeletor's magic was like his mind. It forced the changes he demanded to take place. His magic was like a hurricane force. Lyn's was far more subtle. It was a soft breeze that stuck in the throat and choked the unwary. That breeze now glided to the top of Grayskull's towers, casually rolling along its battlements until it found what it was looking for—the device that created the barrier. Suddenly Lyn's hands danced around her body, the magic struck out and destroyed the little box. She wasn't always subtle.
They both watched as the barrier fell.
Teela opened the corridors of magic from the gardens of the Eternal Palace so that she would be surrounded by the natural powers she drew her power from. The five heroes entered a realm of swirling colors. Each of them stood on a floating disc that they would use to navigate through the dimension that had no ground, no up or down. Teela had warned them all that they must stay together and think only of going forward. It was easy to get lost in the strange realm. Everywhere they looked, swirling colors assaulted their eyes. Even Stratos, who had tested unstable flight machines at dizzying heights felt his stomach lurch once he floated into Orko's realm on his disc.
As soon as they entered the realm, the portal shut behind them with the sound of sucking air. Teela lifted the serpent staff into the air and then pointed it forward. The discs lurched forward suddenly, flying through the swirling colors. Images of solid objects in the madness skirted their vision, but none of them could make out what they were—something that looked like a tree, then maybe a tent flew by, then sheets caught in a wind. They could each hear voices in the distance though, mumblings but no words.
"Up!" Teela screamed. The discs obeyed her command, flying over what looked like a large rock spinning in the ether.
Mekaneck's goggles were designed to enhance his vision. He could read the design on a flag coming through the city gate while standing at his post in the Eternal Palace. Now, this same enhanced vision was a curse. The goggles kept trying to lock on everything around him. Dizzy, he fell to his knees, sending the disc spinning away from the group. It was all he could do to hang on.
Adam was the first to see Mekaneck disappear into the swirling colors. "Teela," he cried. She shook her head. It was too late. The group shot through the portal Teela had waiting for them. The disc stopped on the other side, lowering their passengers to the ground.
"Adam, I'm sorry," Teela said. "I'll go back in and find him." She got back on the disc but was stopped by a strange little creature's emergence from the portal, pulling Mekaneck's disc in tow.
"Hello," the little man said. He floated above the ground in a long red robe that fell just longer than his thin blue hands. His head, which was just two glowing yellow eyes peering out of an empty black space over a blue scarf where his mouth should have been, was topped with a pointed red hat, bent at the top. His robe had a singular decoration, a black "O" that identified him among a race of people that looked otherwise the same.
"Orko?" Teela questioned.
"Of course!" Orko said cheerfully. "And I believe you already know my sick friend Mekaneck. I'm sure it will wear off soon, old buddy." Orko's voice was squeaky, like that of a giant mouse. "What's going on?" he asked as the portal shut behind him.
"Well," Stratos said gruffly, "no adventure would be complete without Orko.":
"My sentiments exactly," Orko agreed. "Whatever were thinking trying to get through my home without at least letting me know you were coming. I could have prepared a proper welcome at the very least."
"Getting through without letting you know was the general idea," Teela said sarcastically.
"Well, I…"
Orko was cut off by the Sorceress' warning. "Adam, Teela, the barrier is down!"