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Three: bait and switch
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Her head ached.
Teela held very still, trying to piece things together. She was curled on her side; the ground beneath her was stone, roughly hewn and cold; the air was nearly as frigid as the floor; water dripped somewhere in the distance. It smelled of dank and damp and darkness.
Underground, she thought fuzzily. In a cavern.
Her skull ached, just above the join of her neck. Obviously someone had struck her there, and then she'd ended up in the cavern.
How…?
She struggled with gray, slippery memories for a few moments. She'd been at Castle Grayskull, fighting… Whiplash? No, Clawful… and she'd taken the big brute down hard… and something had happened to her father, he'd called out in pain, and she'd turned to go to him…
…and that was it. She couldn't remember anything else.
So one of Skeletor's henchmen had snuck up behind her and knocked her out. Hard to say which one. Not that it mattered. If she'd been captured, then she was in Snake Mountain, and that meant she was in a lot of trouble.
She opened her eyes cautiously, not wanting to attract attention if any of the bad guys were around. It was a good-sized chamber, walls vanishing upwards into a stalactite blackness, a few lanterns dotting the floor at the perimeter. From the unnatural violet color of the flames, they were magical.
She was alone.
Teela gave up caution and pushed herself to a sitting position, which sent a dull spike of pain through her head and neck muscles. She automatically reached up to – carefully – probe the sore place, then realized she wasn't restrained in any way.
Her hands flew to her belt. The communicator was long gone, but her snake staff was still there.
That didn't bode well. If she wasn't restrained, and her weapon hadn't been confiscated, it meant Skeletor thought there was no chance of her escaping the chamber.
"Well, that's great," she said under her breath. She climbed to her feet, wobbled for a second, and began looking around in earnest.
There was a large circle carved into the rock beneath her, wide enough to hold Ram Man with room left over for Mekanek. She'd been lying in the center. Outside the circle – a summoning circle, it had to be – the floor was covered with magical sigils and script.
Bad to worse.
Skeletor wouldn't think twice about performing all kinds of evil spells on her, either to further some plot or merely to spite her father and the king. But, realistically, this was probably a trap for He-Man. Which made her the bait.
We'll just see about that. Teela hated being the damsel in distress, and she intended to communicate her feelings on the matter very, very clearly when she got free.
She picked a direction at random and took a few steps. As soon as her boot's toe touched the inner edge of the circle, purple light flared and magical energy slammed down in a curving wall before her.
Teela jumped back instinctively. In a blink, the wall raced all the way around the circle, sealing her in. "No!" she exclaimed, frustrated.
A woman's laughter, rich and smooth and full of scorn, drifted out from the shadows.
"Poor little fool," Evil-Lyn said, stepping into the flickering light of the nearest lantern. She rested one hand on her hip; the other curled around her staff. "Don't tell me you thought you'd simply walk out of here?"
Evil-Lyn hadn't been at the battle. Teela had noticed mainly because the witch, Elders knew why, always liked to single her out. According to He-Man, Skeletor and Evil-Lyn hadn't been on the best terms lately, and Teela had assumed Evil-Lyn was skipping out of spite.
But maybe she'd been there, after all. Lurking. Waiting for an ambush. Waiting to grab the bait.
Teela crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin confidently. "Since that's how I usually leave Snake Mountain – yeah."
One eyebrow arched, mocking. "Snake Mountain. Is that where we are? Are you certain?"
Well. Not anymore.
Evil-Lyn laughed again. "You really are that stupid, aren't you. This has nothing to with Skeletor. Or, shall we say, nothing to do with helping Skeletor."
So He-Man's report had been accurate. Being dangled over the maw of a nightmare creature probably was a sore spot; Teela decided to poke at it. "I guess it must be hard to work in the shadow of such a powerful magician."
"Powerful!" Evil-Lyn scoffed.
"More powerful than you."
The eyebrows drew into a fierce glare, and Teela mentally added a point to her side of the board. "You should watch your tongue, brat. I don't need it for this spell."
If Evil-Lyn thought that was going to send Teela cowering silently into a corner…
Teela shifted her stance, one hand reaching for the staff on her belt. "What spell?" she demanded.
"You'll find out soon enough." The witch crossed the floor, delicately stepping around the mystical symbols, and came to a stop just outside the sealed circle. She gestured carelessly at the magic wall – though the sharp expression in her eyes was anything but careless. "After all, I can't possibly perform it without you."
"Good luck – I don't have any magic," Teela said, scowling at her.
Unless you counted some temporary telepathy from a blood transfusion. She didn't.
Evil-Lyn tsked derisively. "Don't flaunt your ignorance, child. A translocation spell such as this has very specific requirements. Why, I've searched all of Eternia for a suitable candidate! What a surprise to find that Man-At-Arms' idiot daughter is positively overflowing with magical energy."
Despite herself, Teela began to feel uneasy. Evil-Lyn sounds awfully sure about this, she thought. Elders! Now I wish I was just the bait!
She pulled her staff from her belt and expanded it, pointing the snake head at Evil-Lyn. "Magic or no magic, I'll never help you!"
Evil-Lyn threw back her head and laughed. Mocking. "As though I would ever need your help! No – all you'll do is stand there like a stone. Simple enough even for your limited intellect."
Teela's hands tightened around her staff. "What makes you think I'm going to cooperate?"
Evil-Lyn's smile was cruel. "You don't have a choice," she purred.
The curving wall of magic shifted and rippled, daring Teela to touch it. f she did, she'd probably be knocked on her tail, electrocuted, or both. Or worse.
She was trapped.
But she wasn't going to admit that. "I'll find a way," she said, glaring.
"Oh, please. Do spare me the heroic speech." Evil-Lyn's eyes began to glow, and magic shimmered in the air around her hands and her staff. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to begin before that muscle-bound oaf shows up and ruins things."
The sigils marked around the room flared to life as well. Teela stepped back into the center of the circle, collapsing her staff as she did so. With whatever magic was about to start flying around, she didn't need to make herself a bigger target.
Ha! As if you aren't in the bull's-eye already, she told herself.
She returned her staff to her belt anyway and took a ready stance, weight in the balls of her feet, muscles tensed.
Evil-Lyn began reciting an incantation in no language Teela could recognize, voice low and urgent.
As if in response, a titanic boom sounded elsewhere. The chamber shook; dust and small fragments of rock rained down from the ceiling.
He-Man.
Teela couldn't fight – Elders, she couldn't even leave the blasted circle! – but there was nothing to prevent her from warning him.
"He-Man!" Teela yelled, as loudly as she could, cupping her hands around her mouth just in case it helped. "It's Evil-Lyn – she's casting some kind of spell! Hurry!"
The light from the magical sigils became searing. An unnatural wind whipped through the chamber, guttering the flames in the lanterns and making Evil-Lyn's clothes flap and flutter madly.
The witch didn't seem to notice. If anything, her chanting grew louder. More triumphant.
Another massive impact, closer now. The magical wall trapping Teela within the circle glowed brighter and brighter, and the wind rose to a howl. There seemed to be too much noise, too much light. It went on and on.
Then, cutting through the chaos, she heard He-Man call out, "Teela!"
He'd come into the chamber on the opposite side of Evil-Lyn, sword drawn and ready. Larger than life and twice as heroic, and it was more than a little embarrassing to find herself in need of his help… again.
She hadn't seen more than a glimpse of him at Castle Grayskull; he looked different somehow, Teela thought, then realized he was no longer wearing his Snakemen armor. Back to basics for everyone, it seemed.
If only the basics didn't include bait.
"I can't get free!" she shouted at him.
"Just hold on!" he told her, steady and confident, as he circled cautiously around towards the witch.
Teela wanted to believe him – she really did – but magical energy was crackling along the floor beneath her feet, tracing arcane patterns before blinking out again, over and over.
For some reason, it reminded her of running through the communicator frequencies, trying to find the right one.
And that was a bit concerning.
He-Man had reached the witch, who stopped chanting, though the wind and light didn't abate. "Let her go, Evil-Lyn!"
"A valiant try," Evil-Lyn said, scornful again, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. Her eyes flashed with power. "But too little, too late!"
Oh, Elders -
A portal spiraled open at Teela's feet, black and red and purple and wrong. She didn't have time for more than a quick, instinctive breath before it swept upwards.
The last thing she saw was He-Man's face as he dove for her. His eyes wide with fright, his fair hair whipped by the wind, for that half a moment she thought he looked – he looked exactly like –