The experience and wisdom evident in the mystery guest's voice told the three Toa this must be a Turaga, though they could not identify him. "Turaga? Forgive me, but I know you not," said Nuju to him.
"Your concern should be with your own identities, not mine," the Turaga said quietly. "Freedom and escape are different objectives, but both are easily realized."
"With all respect, wise one," replied Onewa, "you are stuck in here with us, so—"
"I have freedom…even in here," said the Turaga, gesturing to their surroundings. "But for escape, Toa mask powers are needed."
The Toa exchanged glances. Whatever hope they had felt on encountering the mysterious Turaga was fading fast. "l doubt we will ever be in touch with our mask powers," said Nuju.
"Never doubt what you are capable of," answered the Turaga. "The Great Spirit lives through all of us."
Trapped in a cell with two Toa wannabes and a crazy Turaga, thought Onewa. Next time someone gives me a Toa Stone, I think I will just use it as a doorstop.
X X X
The Vahki transport crawled through the Sculpture Fields. Its final destination remained a mystery, but at this point the farther the Toa were from the Coliseum, the more comfortable they felt.
In the back of the transport, Vakama had succeeded in merging three of the six Great Disks. Nokama watched him at work for a long time before saying, "Vakama, your destiny no longer lies in sculpting masks. You are a Toa."
Vakama shrugged. "I'll never be a real Toa…I don't feel like a Toa. I can't even make a decent mask," he said, holding up the frustrating disk. "I'm just a cross-wired freak with weird dreams." He sighed. "Toa Lhikan, you've got it wrong. I can't be a hero."
Nokama sat beside the Toa she considered to be her best friend among the Toa Metru. She put a hand on his shoulder. "You will. Have faith."
X X X
As the Vahki transport went around a sharp curve, the three Toa Metru leaped out. They were well inside Po-Metru now and there was no point risking discovery by the Vahki at the wheel. They tumbled to safety and stayed low until the transport was out of sight. Then Nokama rose and looked around. "An assemblers' village," she said, although it was obvious to all where they were.
The village consisted of a broad avenue and a series of buildings. Scattered about were machines, furniture and statues, all of them half-finished. That was normal for such a place, but something else set the Toa on edge.
The village was abandoned. Doors banged open and closed in the wind. Tools lay where they had been dropped. Vakama's eyes narrowed as he noticed a stack of silver spheres near one of the buildings, then he moved on.
This place feels wrong-bad, thought Matau. "Hello?" he shouted.
No one answered, except for his own echoes.
Puzzled, he turned to Nokama and said, "Guess they all quick-sped."
"Builders do not abandon their projects without good reason," said the Toa of Water.
"Then where is everyone?" asked Vakama.
Krekka burst out of one of the buildings, launching energy bolts at the Toa Metru. "Get ready to find out, Toa!" he bellowed.
Nokama whirled, spinning her hydro blades fast enough to deflect the bolts. Then all three Toa dove for cover behind one of the buildings. But they had hardly hit the ground before Matau was ready to charge back out again.
"A Toa-hero knows no fear!" he said as he raced into the street. Krekka's next blast missed him, and the Toa of Air crowed, "You'll have to do better than that!"
Nidhiki accepted the challenge. Stepping out from behind a building, he hurled an energy web at the Toa. Entangled, Matau hit the ground. "Vakama, Nokama, help! There's a Toa down!" he yelled, struggling to get free.
Hearing his cry, Vakama and Nokama began to circle around the buildings to come to his aid. Meanwhile, Nidhiki and Krekka had both closed in on the captured Toa.
"Calling all Toa!" Krekka shouted. "Your time is up!"
A rapidly growing rumble drowned out anything else he said. The ground beneath their feet began to shake violently. "What's going on?!" Krekka asked, turning to his partner. "Are you doing that?"
"No!" snapped Nidhiki.
"Bioquake?" suggested Vakama.
"Worse!" answered Nokama.
Now a cloud of dust had appeared on the far edge of the village, closing in on the Toa and Dark Hunters. From out of that cloud emerged a herd of fearsome beasts. Large bipeds, their powerful hind legs propelled them forward in huge leaps and bounds. Twin tusks on their lower jaws made the herd look like a spiked wall on the march. Their eyes burned red and deep roars came from their mouths as they stormed through the village.
"Kikanalo!" Nokama shouted.
Massive creatures resembling a cross between a kangaroo and an elephant, great herds of Kikanalo swept across the plains and canyons of Po-Metru semi-regularly. Kikanalo were known for their stampedes and trampling entire villages, but were tolerated by Matoran because their tusks often dug up chunks of protodermis left over from carving projects. Right now, though, their efficiency as recyclers was the last thing on anyone's mind.
The eyes of the Dark Hunters went wide as they saw the herd bearing down upon them. "l hate those things!" said Krekka. His massive form moved amazingly fast as he scrambled to the top of a nearby tower. "I'm outta here."
"No!" yelled Nidhiki. "Stay low!"
But Krekka wasn't listening, and Nidhiki had no more time to worry about him. He dove into a construction trench as the herd thundered closer.
Matau struggled to his feet just as the Kikanalo entered the village. The force of their footfalls sent him flying through the air, to land with a crash near Vakama and Nokama. They darted out and dragged their dazed comrade into a small building.
Now the Kikanalo had made it as far as Krekka's tower. Almost casually, a few of the beasts rammed the tower with their tusks, sending it toppling over. Nidhiki looked up in time to see his partner and the structure falling right toward him.
"Next time, listen to me," he muttered.
Nokama saw Krekka land on top of Nidhiki in the ditch. Using her hydro blades, she cut loose a stack of the strange silver spheres and sent them rolling toward the ditch. Then she ducked back inside as the spheres crashed into the Dark Hunters.
Matau and Vakama watched the Kikanalo trampling and smashing assemblers' huts to bits. "We should quick-flee," said the Toa of Air.
"Nonsense," Nokama replied. "This is the sturdiest structure in the village."
"Nokama—" Vakama began.
The Toa of Water cut him off. "We're staying—"
Suddenly, three Kikanalo crashed through the ceiling of the building. Finding themselves closed in, the beasts panicked and began leaping wildly about, slamming into the Toa again and again. In desperation, Matau grabbed Nokama and Vakama and hurled them out the window before following himself.
He had acted just in time. Behind them, the building exploded as the angry Kikanalo kicked it to pieces. Once free, they leaped away to join the herd.
Nokama looked at Matau. "I was wrong. You were right, my brother."
"It's amazing what you can learn when you're not always speak-teaching," Matau replied.
The approach of more Kikanalo ended the argument as the Toa fled. They were barely staying ahead of the beasts, whose tusks swiped dangerously close to the three heroes. The lead beast was an aged Kikanalo, his hide covered with strange markings and old scars. He gave an impatient snort as he tried to catch up to the Toa Metru.
"What did you say?" Nokama asked Matau.
"l didn't—" Matau stopped in midsentence. Nokama's mask had become illuminated, but the Toa of Water did not seem to notice. "Why is the mask glowing?" he asked.
Then Nokama did the most amazing, shocking thing Matau could ever imagine, under the circumstances: she stopped running. She simply stopped, with a Kikanalo stampede practically on top of her.
"Nokama?" Vakama shouted.
But she was paying no attention to him. She turned to face the onrushing beasts as if they were nothing to fear. Vakama and Matau both winced, sure the herd was about to trample their fellow Toa. The lead Kikanalo gave out an angry snort as it closed in on Nokama.
The Toa of Water responded with a similar sound. The lead Kikanalo, looking stunned, stopped with his tusks mere inches from her mask. The other beasts stopped as well, not in a pileup but like a well-drilled Vahki squad.
The elder Kikanalo's scars began to glow. He snorted aggressively at the Toa who stood before him. Nokama stared into his eyes as a new world opened up for her. Turning back to the Toa, she said excitedly, "Brothers—my mask power!" It was now apparent that Nokama wore a Kanohi Rau, the Great Mask of Translation. The mask allowed the user to translate and communicate in any written or spoken language. She turned back to the lead Kikanalo for a few seconds, then turned to the Toa again. "The chief wants to know…why we are allied…with Dark Hunters."
Vakama could not believe what he was hearing. Could Nokama really understand what these creatures were saying? Or had his visions finally driven sanity from him? No, this seemed real. Certainly his body ached enough from being thrown out a window onto the street. "Um…tell him we're not," he said to Nokama. "We seek a friend the Hunters have taken."
Nokama turned her attention back to the Kikanalo chief and gave a series of animalistic grunts and snorts. The elder beast responded in kind, his body language relaxing. "You are free to pass," Nokama translated, "since we are both against the Hunters who trespass the beauty of the Herdlands…"
"Beauty? Ha! Where?" Matau asked Vakama with a rough bump. "And who knew Kikanalo could think-talk? I just thought they were dumb beasts."
The elder Kikanalo grunted. Nokama chuckled as she reported, "Kikanalo still think the same of tall green Matoran."
"Tall Matoran?" said Matau, shocked. "Hey, now! I am a Toa!"
"Wait, wait," broke in Vakama, with barely contained excitement. "'Tall Matoran?' Ask him if the Dark Hunters trespassed with a 'tall Matoran."'
Nokama nodded and translated Vakama's question into the language of the Kikanalo. The Rahi beast responded with a snort.
"Yes," Nokama said. "They take many things to the 'place of unending whispers."'
"That must be where they have taken Toa Lhikan!" said Vakama.
The elder Kikanalo grunted, as if in agreement. "They will show us the way," Nokama translated.
X X X
The three Toa rode across the plains of Po-Metru on Kikanalo. Behind them, the rest of the herd followed close behind. For the first time, Vakama felt some hope. If they could find Lhikan, rescue him, surely Dume could be stopped. The Toa of Fire had no idea what the Turaga's plans were, or why he had turned against the city, but he had no doubt Lhikan could make things right.
Matau smiled. This was the sort of adventure he had always dreamed of during the long days riding Ussal crabs through Le-Metru. New places, new excitement, a quest to save a captured hero—this was what being a Toa-hero was all about! Laughing, he stood up on the back of the Kikanalo and started spinning around. "Only a great Toa-rider could tame a wild Kikanalo-beast!" he proclaimed.
The Rahi's response was to stop and buck, tossing the Toa of Air onto the ground. Matau landed with a hard thud.
"It seems a 'great Toa-rider' has been tamed," said Nokama. She and Vakama both smiled at the sight of Matau sprawled on the plain. Even he looked up and grinned.
It would be the last time any of them would smile for a long while.
X X X
Whenua had lived in dim light, sometimes almost complete darkness, for much of his life. Like any Onu-Matoran, over time his eyes had adjusted to the point where he could see in the semi-dark. Although much of Onu-Metru was on the surface, Onu-Matoran actually preferred to be in the underground levels of the Archives, because the brightness of the twin suns hurt their sensitive eyes.
Still, nothing had prepared him for the task at hand—trying to make his way around a small cell with a blindfold on. He kept bumping into walls and other Toa, and his temper was coming to a boil faster than protodermis in a Ta-Metru furnace.
The mysterious Turaga was not helping matters any. "Do not rely on your memory," he said. "Look beyond your history and see what is."
Look beyond history? Whenua had been an archivist—he lived for history! Telling an Onu-Matoran to forget about the past was like telling a Ko-Matoran to put away the telescope and lighten up. "Hey, I'm not a Rahi bat!" snapped Whenua. "I can't see in the dark."
The Turaga quietly slid a stool into the path of the Toa of Earth. Whenua promptly tripped over it and hit the ground.
Onewa had been watching the whole exercise from his seat on the stone floor. Now he burst out laughing. "Soon you'll be ready for a game of 'pin the tail on the ash bear', record-keeper!"
On the other side of the room, Nuju had spent the last hours transferring stones from one large pile to another. It was exhausting work, made all the more so by the fact that he could not see the point of it. How was hauling rocks going to make him a better Toa? "l could toil at this task forever and still learn nothing for the future," the Toa of Ice complained.
The Turaga shook his head. "You could learn that building the most noble tower begins with the placement of a single stone."
Onewa chuckled again. "Build a tower? A thinker would never lay hands on stone! They're too busy with their heads in the stars."
The Turaga turned to Onewa, smiling. "There are lessons for you to learn as well, Toa. A Toa's duty is to all Matoran, regardless of Metru. So…you shall help both your brothers."
Onewa's smile faded, replaced with a dark scowl. The Turaga extended his hands to the Toa of Stone. In one, he held a rock; in the other, a blindfold.