A perfect sphere of crystal hung in the center of the chamber. It spun slowly in place, suspended in midair under the roof of the dome. It glowed steadily, but Jake felt that pulse burst out with each full spin.
The crystal heart of Kukulkan!
The pulse was its heartbeat.
As Jake’s eyes grew accustomed to the glow, he saw something else that surprised him. The sphere was really three spheres, one inside the other, like Russian nesting dolls. Two layers spun in opposite directions: one spun left to right, the other right to left. The third spun from top to bottom. Strange letters were carved across the surface of all three spheres and spun to form all manner of combinations, like some crystal computer.
Marika crept forward and passed between Pindor and Bach’uuk. Her eyes were huge. The floor sloped down to form a bowl under the crystal heart. Below the spinning sphere were three miniature versions of the larger one. One emerald, one ruby, one sapphire blue.
The three primary colors of light again.
Jake glanced at his silver apprentice badge. The same three stones formed a triangle around the diamond. He realized the pattern must be a miniature version of the layout here. The diamond represented the crystal heart. The colored gems stood for the three smaller spheres.
Fascinated, he stared back at the center of the room.
Below the giant crystal heart, the small spheres spun in place, like small moons trapped in orbit by the larger planet above—or rather two of them spun.
The emerald crystal seemed to wobble, and while the others glowed with their own inner light, the green sphere was dull and dark. Something was definitely wrong with it.
The cause for that became apparent when shadows boiled out of a hallway on the far side of the dome. They fluttered around a humanlike shape, but details were impossible to pick out. They cloaked the figure completely and spat around him like black flames.
It had to be the assassin Bach’uuk had seen fleeing Kalakryss.
Jake withdrew to the shelter of the passageway and drew Marika with him. The shadowy man—if it was a man—knelt by the green crystal and placed two hands over its surface. From his fingers, darkness flowed and sank into the emerald stone. The wobbling grew more erratic.
The assassin was doing something to restrain or possibly destroy this one sphere. But why? To what end? Jake remembered Marika talking about the gifts of Kukulkan, her description of the field cast out by the pyramid, how it granted a common language to all, protected the valley against dangers, and kept the crystals in the valley powered.
Three gifts…three colored spheres
Two gifts still worked—language and the power of the crystals—but not the third. Not the barrier. Jake now knew how the Skull King’s forces had penetrated the valley’s defenses. He was staring at it. This creature had weakened the barrier at its source—he had poisoned the emerald sphere.
He had to be stopped or the entire valley would be destroyed.
Jake stepped out. He rose to his toes and flicked on his penlight. If he moved quietly, he could catch the shadowy assassin by surprise. And with the reach of the penlight’s beam, he wouldn’t even have to get that close. It was worth the risk.
Jake lifted a hand to warn the others to stay back. He had continued a few steps farther when a piercing cry rose from the grakyl horde outside. Jake cringed at the triumphant keen to their wails. He feared what that might mean for everyone in the valley. But at the moment, it meant disaster for Jake.
The shadowy figure, perhaps curious about the noise, glanced toward the entrance. His swirling face swung straight at Jake. Jake froze as if struck by the beam of his own penlight. The creature sprang up, carried by the shadows beneath him. He rushed straight at Jake.
Jake finally reacted and raised his penlight. He shone it straight at the pool of shadows that hid the figure’s face. The freezing light burned through the shadows. The darkness flowed away from the beam like water.
The creature shied to the side. Jake almost caught a glimpse of the face behind the mask—then the beam from his penlight flickered and died.
Panicked, Jake shook the flashlight. He got it to shine for another second, then it blinked off again. The shadows poured back over the face and swallowed the features away.
The figure cast up both arms and shadows boiled out from his form and washed over Jake’s lower body. His legs went immediately cold. The shadows thickened to the consistency of tar. He couldn’t move.
“Jake!” Marika cried out to him.
“Stay back!” he yelled. Or we’ll all be trapped.
The creature seemed to have no trouble wading through the shadows toward Jake. Though the figure had no face, Jake imagined a vicious smile.
Words flowed out, muffled by the shadows: “You survived my trap. My master will be pleased. He has grand plans for you.”
Jake didn’t know what the creature was talking about. He frantically shook his penlight, but the batteries had completely failed.
Jake heard feet running behind him. He glanced back and saw Marika, Pindor, and Bach’uuk sprinting to his aid, aiming straight for the pool of shadows. They hadn’t listened to him. Emotions warred inside him. He was both selfishly relieved, while at the same time terrified for his new friends.
Pindor hit the pool of shadows first, and his legs went out from under him. He fell face-first into the black pool. Bach’uuk and Marika used the boy’s body like a bridge. Bach’uuk was in front and when he reached Pindor’s shoulders, he twisted, grabbed Marika by the waist and threw her toward Jake. She flew over the pool and landed two steps behind him—then she sank to her waist like Jake.
She tried to take a step, hauling her upper body, but she could not move. The entire bit of their gymnastics seemed only to amuse the shadowy creature. A muffled chuckle flowed, but it held no warmth, only ice.
“The Magister’s daughter and the Elder’s son. And a young Urling. You few think to thwart the Skull King?”
Again that dark laugh.
“Jake…” Marika said behind him.
He glanced back. Marika held one hand to her throat and tapped a finger under her chin, as if signaling him. He didn’t know what she meant. Her other hand rose from behind her back. In her fingers, she held a long slender rod, tipped by a fiery crystal. It was her father’s dowsing stick.
She held it out toward Jake, out of sight from the shadowy creature. Marika again tapped at her throat.
Then Jake remembered. Bach’uuk had described one feature that his sharp eyes had picked out of the shadowy form as the assassin fled Kalakryss. A clasp at the throat, decorated with a chunk of bloodstone.