Risky climbed nimbly down from the tunnel to the floor of the cave. She turned to take a look at the remains of the polished wall.
The transformation from nonchalant triumph was instantaneous. Risky’s face was a mask of spite and fury. “The old meddlers,” she spat.
Her blazing eyes found the clocklike symbol. “The Twelve Pairs of Potentiality,” Risky said in a whisper. “Which did you think you would master, Mack? Would you like Fire and Ice? Dreams and Nightmares?” She looked over her shoulder at Mack. “Darkness and Light—I think that would have been your thing.”
The diamond-tipped hands grew back in seconds. With a howl of fury, Princess Ereskigal attacked the etched stone.
The violence of it was shocking, the sound deafening. The diamond tips whirred like drills. They cut through the rock like fork tines ripping through a block of cheese.
Okay, that’s not the best analogy, Mack thought. But it was close enough.
“Stop it!” Karri cried. “That is a priceless treasure!”
Her daughter, Jarrah, did not cry out. Instead she took two quick steps and swung her shovel.
It caught Risky on the shoulder.
The princess staggered to the side and spun around, fast but not fast enough. Jarrah reared back and stabbed the shovel blade with amazing accuracy. The blade hit Risky in her long, lovely neck.
The shovel bit deep.
Risky’s eyes opened wide.
Jarrah drew back, determined to keep hitting until the princess was as dead as whoever had chiseled this wall ten thousand years ago.
This time Risky caught the shovel with the tip of her jackhammer hand and knocked it away.
But the damage was done. Risky’s neck was sliced almost all the way through. Where blood should have gushed, a blue-black ooze, like molasses, bubbled out in sluggish spurts.
Risky’s head toppled to one side. It lay on her shoulder, red hair tumbling down.
Risky’s head was hanging by a thread. Her sharp hands melted to reform her own fingers. (Well, Mack assumed they were her own.)
And then, to Mack’s utter horror, Risky, her head horizontal, smiled and said, “Ooooh, that pinched.”
With both hands, Risky took her own head, pushed it back upright, and settled it back in place.
“Huh,” Stefan said.
“Ruuuuun!” Mack screamed.
Twenty-six
A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME AGO…
Grimluk wandered far and wide with his companions of the Magnifica.
Four had been killed in the great battle, so they were eight when they started out. But soon they were five. Two left for home, discouraged. Another, Bruise, was killed in a Skirrit ambush.
They buried Bruise with his wild-boar shoes and his skunk pelt.
They traveled through lands that had no name. Across seas that no one had ever crossed before. Through mountain passes clogged with snow, across waterless deserts (pretty much the only kind of desert), and along the banks of mighty rivers.
The Pale Queen might be safely imprisoned in the World Below. But her daughter was traveling the length and breadth of the world above.
Although they heard rumors of the princess here or there or somewhere else, they never caught up with her.
And with each day, Grimluk knew their powers were weaker. They were growing older and fewer in number. If they did find Ereskigal, she would be as likely to destroy them as the reverse.