Derthsin’s eyes glittered as he gazed at the pieces of the mask, then positioned them on the podium alongside the other fragment. He reached out with pale fingers and stroked Rufus’s cheek with a grime-caked nail.
“You’ve done well, my friend,” he said.
His friend?
Tanner didn’t understand. After all they’d been through! Rufus had stood by them, fighting side by side, blasting at the defenses while his Beast attacked the enemy soldiers….
Cold fury swept over Tanner as he realized the truth. Rufus hadn’t been trying to destroy the defenses — he’d been trying to get in, to reach Derthsin.
“How long?” he called out. “How long have you been working for him?”
Rufus hunched his shoulders and gazed around at Tanner, his face pale despite the heat. His tongue darted out from between his lips, like a snake’s. “From the beginning,” Rufus said. “Since he lived back in the cave.”
“But we trusted you,” gasped Gwen. “All that time you were an enemy in our midst?”
Rufus smiled. “Don’t think of me as an enemy, Gwen,” he said. “More a … negotiator.”
“You’re a filthy traitor!” shouted Castor. “You can be tossed in a pit of writhing snakes for all I care!”
Rufus raised his eyebrows and lifted his staff. “Careful, Castor. I’ll turn you into a snake if you don’t hold your tongue.”
First Geffen, now Rufus, thought Tanner desperately. Where the mask was concerned, no one could be trusted. Could he even trust himself to resist its power?
“Enough!” bellowed Derthsin. “It is time to begin!”
He thrust a hand out toward Tanner and a beam of fire shot from his fingertips like a whip. Tanner lifted his arms to protect his face and felt the tip slice through his sleeve. He looked at his arm and saw a red, raw burn mark on the skin. Derthsin flicked his wrist again and a trail of fire snaked around Tanner’s ankle, tugging him from Firepos’s back. His Beast screeched as he landed with a heavy thud on the ground. Through his breathlessness, Tanner felt searing pain climb his lower leg. Derthsin pulled, hand over hand, dragging Tanner forward. The stone floor tore at his clothes and scraped the skin on his back. However much he wriggled, he couldn’t free himself.
Derthsin grinned, and his lips glistened. “Come to me, Tanner,” he hissed. “Soon you will taste real pain!”
I cannot let this happen! My Chosen Rider and I have been through too much.
Nera! I need you to distract our foe.
The giant cat pricks her ears and snatches up a loose boulder in her teeth. With a flick of her head, she hurls it toward Derthsin. As the evil lord dodges aside, I take to the air. The ache under my wing feels like iron hooks tearing at my flesh, but I give three strong beats and dart at my enemy. With a slice of my beak, I cut a gash in his head.
Derthsin’s rope of fire dissolves into ash as he stumbles back with a cry of pain. One hand staunches the flow of blood from his head while the other shoots a beam of fire toward me. I turn my feathers and soak up the heat.
Fool! Fire is my friend, as it is yours. You cannot harm me that way!
Tanner limps toward me, and I crouch beside him to let him take his place once more.
“You’re too late!” shouted Derthsin, his pale skin smeared with blood. “Rufus, fulfill your destiny!”
As Gulkien and Nera rushed toward Derthsin, carrying their riders, Rufus touched the tip of his staff to the mask with a trembling hand. Nera pounced, covering twenty paces in a single bound, and Castor lifted his sword to strike at the evil lord. A dazzling light, as bright as a bolt of lightning, shot out of Rufus’s staff and lit up the cave. Tanner squeezed his eyes shut, but even then he could see the silhouette of the mask, its pieces fusing together along jagged lines. It was much larger now.
“Behold, the Face of Anoret!” bellowed Derthsin.
The light faded and a huge boom rocked the cave, throwing Tanner from Firepos’s feathers and driving Gulkien and Nera onto the stone platform. The wolf skidded across the rocks, his wings tangling beneath him and Gwen clinging desperately to his back. Gulkien’s claws skittered across the ground, finally dragging him to a halt just short of the edge of the pit. Rufus lay beside the podium, unconscious or dead.
Castor, low against Nera’s bristling fur, gazed at Tanner in shock. “What was that?”
Derthsin seized the mask from the ground. He held it up to the wall behind him.
“Come, Anoret! Your master calls you!”
The wall shuddered and cracks opened in its surface, snaking up and down. Tanner stared. A huge section of the wall wasn’t formed from black rock like the rest of the cavern, but a deep blue stone, stained with dark red streaks. One section started to bulge out, and a three-pronged claw broke away, grasping at the air. An arm, thick as the trunk of an oak, jerked from the wall, and the outline of a torso pressed through.
A massive, skeletal head, shaped like a lizard’s, shook free of the rock face. Three rows of jagged teeth lined gaping jaws. More of the Beast followed — a stumplike leg ending in scything black claws, and part of her back, lined with silver spikes. She pounded the cavern floor with a thump of her thrashing tail. Anoret stood at least three times as tall as Firepos, with dark blue scales and a red stripe spreading from the back of her head and down her back. The Beast filled the cavern with a roar that shook Tanner’s bones.
My old friend, transformed. I recognize Anoret by her eyes, but her soul has nothing left to say to me. I remember when I, Nera, Falkor, and Gulkien blended our blood together to make her stronger, but now she is under the thrall of Derthsin. I beseech you, Anoret — free yourself. My time is drawing to an end, but there is hope left for you. Shake off your shackles and turn your back on this evil master.
I listen for a response, but there is none. She doesn’t hear — or chooses not to. There is nothing left I can do.
Tanner struggled not to retch when the glow from the lava pool illuminated Anoret’s face. It was nothing but a murky brown mass of rotten, featureless flesh that quivered and twitched with sinew and muscle. Red eyeballs rotated on stalks as the Beast roared in fury, bringing showers of rock debris from the roof of the cavern.
The Beast’s face was torn away years ago, Tanner realized. Just like Firepos told me.
Anoret struggled to free the left side of her body, moaning as she tried to emerge completely.
Derthsin lifted the mask up toward his own face.
“Come, my loyal creature!” said the evil lord. “Victory is ours!”
If Derthsin puts the mask on, thought Tanner, it’s all over!
He bent to his side and picked up a rock the size of his fist. Drawing back his arm, he hurled it at Derthsin. It caught his elbow and Derthsin lowered his arms with a snarl of anger. He shot a bolt of fire at Tanner, who dodged aside, then ran at his enemy.
“Don’t let Derthsin put on the mask!” shouted Tanner.
Gwen snatched an ax from her belt and sent it spinning toward Derthsin. The evil lord moved quickly, twisting away and drawing his own sword, a black-jeweled blade. He deflected the ax, which skittered off across the stone.
Tanner ran from one side, taking the stone pathway to the platform, and Castor took the other. Derthsin cast a beam of fire that exploded on the ground by Castor’s feet, making him stumble back. Next he threw one at Tanner. Lifting his sword, Tanner deflected it harmlessly against the cavern wall, and slashed downward at Derthsin. The evil lord tried to back away, but the sword tip nicked his shoulder.
“There’s another scar for your collection!” said Tanner. He lunged, but Derthsin smashed his blade aside. Tanner drove a foot into Derthsin’s stomach, and the mask flew from his hand.
“No!” roared the evil lord. Tanner watched the mask skid toward the edge of the platform, gleaming orange in the lava light. A hot surge pulsed through his veins.
I can’t lose the power….
He rushed to claim it, but something snagged his ankle and he fell face-first. Derthsin clawed his way over Tanner’s body.
“It’s mine!” Derthsin hissed.
Tanner rolled over dizzily and tasted blood on his lips. He saw Derthsin reach for the mask on all fours and bring it toward his face. Tanner jumped up, landing on Derthsin’s back. As Derthsin staggered to his feet, trying to pull the mask on, Tanner seized Derthsin’s wrists and pushed it away from his face with all his strength.
“I won’t let you….” Tanner muttered.
Finally, Derthsin twisted and threw Tanner over his shoulder. Tanner teetered on the edge of the fiery pit as the mask spun out of his hands toward the lava.
“No!” Derthsin screamed, turning his wild eyes on Tanner. “Burn, you pathetic Avantian!” The evil lord’s foot lashed out and struck him in the chest.
Tanner tumbled over the edge after the Mask of Death. He rushed down toward the bubbling pool, his arms and legs flailing. His fingers brushed a rock jutting from the wall of the fiery pit and he grabbed it, his arm screaming in its socket as it broke his fall. Heat blistered his fingertips as he clung desperately.
The mask splashed into the lava, glowing red-hot, then white-hot. Thick lava bubbled up through the eye sockets as it sank from sight.
Tanner felt as if he had been whipped all over his body. The heat was unbearable.
He closed his eyes as his fingers slid from the rock.