first test was to prove virtue, and the second test was faith.”
I held up a hand. “I am not sky diving without a parachute.”
On cue, the pool erupted behind us. A gel-like snake of water rose up and flowed toward the edge of the cliff. Reaching us, the front piece of it shaped itself into a water-gel boat with outstretched wings. Below the boat’s prow, the figurehead of a horned deer took shape. Then, the whole gel structure solidified into ice.
“A reindeer pulling a sleigh,” I murmured. “Cute, Vane.”
Matt set a foot inside the ice-sled to test its sturdiness. It held. He scowled. “Apparently, your chariot awaits.”
“Don’t look so happy about it,” I said dryly. The snake-hand of water squiggled in the air. I gave in to its demand and walked along the edge of the cliff to the boat.
Matt jumped out of the boat. “Dealing with him always has a price, Ryan.”
Before I could do more than let out a squeak, he tackled me and sent us over the edge of the cliff. I screamed as I tumbled down a thousand invisible steps of compressed air. Each gust of air hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. Finally, I reached the bottom. The air stopped about fifteen feet up and I slammed into the rocks down below.
Luckily, I knew how to tuck and roll, but the jagged surface of the valley made it impossible to set down gently. Matt fell even less gracefully than I did, landing face-first on sharp rocks. He groaned and got up, looking mostly all right. I stood up with effort. Bruises tattooed my arms and judging by the way the rest of my body ached, I had no doubt there were more. I spat at him, “Are you crazy?”
“We didn’t need the sled.” He brushed blood off a small cut on his forehead and stalked off toward the hidden island. The orb bobbed happily after him.
No, apparently, we needed to eat dirt instead. I yelled at his back, “You better have a plan for us to get out of here.”
Nine stone columns held up the rock awning that covered the tiny island. The columns rose out of a moat, evenly spaced across the circumference of the island. We waded through the waist-high water of the moat onto black rock.
I knelt down to touch the odd-looking granite. “Matt, this stone is the same as the one that held Excalibur.”
“I’m not surprised.” He pointed to a column behind us. On the back of it, a figure of a woman in a toga was carved into the rock. Her arms, like branches of a stone tree, rose up and connected to the awning above. Water flowed out of her mouth and back into the moat. A sentinel, she guarded the island. Matt floated the orb around the island in front of the other columns. “They’re all women. Nine women. It has to be the Nine Morgans.”
“Nine Morgans?”
“In legend, Morgan Le Fay and her sisters guard the entrance to Avalon.” Matt floated the orb to the center. On a rectangular dais lay an enormous stone sarcophagus.
“This isn’t an island; it’s a tomb,” I whispered.
Matt walked over to the casket. I followed. An odd picture had been etched on the top of the stone coffin. In the rough shape of an umbrella, a stick-like body supported a curved line of the ten heads of Rawana. Matt took out the cross from his pocket and held it over the etching. A hiss of wind fluttered through the darkness. I stared down at the casket. “The body could be the stem of the cross and the center head the top.”
Matt tried to fit the cross on the center head, but the circles didn’t match. “I don’t understand. This should be the key.”
Another whisper of wind whistled past me, tickling my ears. An intangible memory, fuzzy and unclear in my mind, nagged at me. “There’s something really familiar about this—”
Behind me, Matt muttered, “Rawana held the nectar of immortality inside his navel. I wonder if that’s the answer.”
I whipped around just in time to see Matt press the cross vertically down the center head. “Wait, Matt. Don’t touch—”
The stone depressed into the slab and swallowed the cross. Matt looked at me smugly, “It worked.”
The island trembled. Around us, the stalagmites moved. Not in a good way. They started sinking into the water. The awning began to lower. We were going to get squished.
Matt cursed and jumped up on the casket, sliding