He handed Zak a small dagger. “What for?”
“You have to stick it in the ground in the middle of a grave near the Crypt of the Ancients. Tomorrow morning we’ll go and see if it’s there. For proof.”
So much for his plan. Zak shivered.
“He looks scared!” someone teased.
“Just cold,” Zak lied.
“Here, take this.” Kairn gave Zak his thick cloak. “And you’ll need this, too.” He handed Zak a tiny glowrod to use for light.
Zak wrapped the heavy cloak around his shoulders and took a step into the graveyard, holding the glowrod in front of him. Its light barely penetrated the rolling mist. Row after row of tombstones vanished into the darkness before him. He took a few more steps. The headstones looked like a miniature city. A city of the dead.
“Good luck!” Kairn whispered behind him. “Oh, and watch out for the boneworms.”
“Boneworms?” Zak hissed. “What are boneworms?”
“Nothing, really,” Kairn chuckled. “Just wriggling creatures that come out of the ground. They’ll suck the marrow from your bones if you stay still too long!
The iron gate slammed shut behind Zak.
CHAPTER 5
Zak looked around. He stood at the edge of the graveyard, which stretched out before him into the misty dark. Winding among the headstones, Zak saw several flagstone paths.
“The paths of the dead,” Zak said to himself.
He stopped to look at the nearest grave marker. There were words carved on it in a language he couldn’t read, but Zak could guess what it said. He whispered, “Here lies someone’s loving mother, laid to rest by her adoring family.”
Zak bit his lip. His parents had never been laid to rest.
Maybe that’s why they were haunting him. Maybe that’s why his parents had visited him twice in his dreams. He was sure they would visit him again.
Were they angry at him because he wasn’t with them when they died? Because he and Tash hadn’t given them a proper burial? That’s what the Necropolitans believed.
But how could we? he thought. The whole planet was destroyed.
Zak’s brain knew that, but his heart didn’t. His heart was full of guilt because he had not been able to give his parents a funeral. He hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye.
The Necropolitans are right, he thought. If you don’t give the dead their respect, they do come back to haunt you.
A muffled crunching noise made Zak jump. He looked around but saw nothing in the dark. He shivered, and stopped to pull the heavy cloak tight around his shoulders. He had to get this over with and stop thinking about such creepy things.
Zak wasn’t a thinker like Tash was. She read everything she could get her hands on, especially about the mysterious Jedi Knights. She talked about philosophy and even believed in a mystical power called the Force. Zak preferred to think with his hands, and was a born tinkerer. He would take apart a repulsor lift just to see if he could put it together again. When he wasn’t building things, he was pulling daredevil stunts in the hologym or on his skimboard.
Maybe the stunts are getting a little out of hand, he thought, looking around the deserted cemetery.
The crunching sound came from directly beneath his feet.
Zak jumped almost a meter into the air. He looked down just in time to see a gleaming slimy white shape wriggle into the ground right where he had been standing.
Boneworms.
He remembered Kairn’s warning and decided not to stand in one place for too long.
As he continued along the path, Zak admitted to himself what he had hinted to Tash. He had been skeptical of Tash and her all-powerful “Force,” but he wanted to believe in the powers of the witch of Necropolis, and he hoped the Necropolitans were right. Then maybe his mother and father could come back. And then he’d be able to see them and say goodbye.
That was the real reason Zak had come to the graveyard.
Despite the cobblestone path, Zak soon found himself lost in a maze of tombs and graves. The cemetery seemed to go on forever. Now and then Zak thought of turning back, but he didn’t want to face the teasing his new friends would give him, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to rest until he had at least tried the thing he was planning.
He walked for what seemed like an hour. But with all the twists and turns, he doubted that he was more than half a kilometer from the iron gates. Just as he was about to give up, he turned yet another corner and found himself before an enormous crypt. Its face was carved with rows of horned creatures that looked like krayt dragons, their leering faces warning him to stay away. A massive iron door was set in the wall of the crypt. Oddly enough, there was a strong lock on the outside of the door, as though the Necropolitans were trying to keep someone-or something-inside.