Kingdom Keepers VI(101)

This time Chernabog yanked the weapon out and threw it across the chamber where it shattered against a wall. Finn ducked instinctively from the flying pieces.

Wild with rage, the beast tried to force itself to standing.

At that moment, the roof caved in, unleashing a torrent of water. Chernabog slashed at the flow, not understanding it. In lashing out at the ceiling, he further ruptured the precarious seam between stones. Water gushed down, filling the chamber. Finn floated off his feet, slapping the surface to remain buoyant. He spun in the water. Which way was out? All four walls, all four tunnel entrances looked identical. He tried to recall Chernabog’s movements. Hadn’t he crossed the chamber diagonally? Was that where he stood now, fighting against a fallen rock that was pinning him?

Only one tunnel led out to the jungle.

Finn treaded water frantically. The pinned beast heaved. More water gushed down—a river now—but Chernabog had freed himself.

Finn had to pick a tunnel; there was no time.

Then he spotted it: the water was quiet at the mouth of two of the tunnel entrances—because they were dead ends. Two others had water spilling into, and filling, the tunnels. One of these two he’d come through only moments before.

He only had one chance. He guessed it was the tunnel immediately to his right, the one farthest from…

Chernabog stood beneath the waterfall coming through the ceiling, reaching out and pulling at it as if it were fabric. He’s scared of water, Finn realized. The beast was fighting the water, screaming, thrusting his horns into the flow and swinging his great paws. He was consumed with fear.

As the water rose, Finn swam underwater for the tunnel. Should Chernabog look over, he would fail to see which tunnel Finn chose.

Echoing from behind him came the guttural, bubbling sounds of a monster near drowning.

Finn hurt all over as he walked. He slipped and fell, stood again with great difficulty. The speed of the water rising lessened. Finally he was out of the water altogether.

He combed the stone surface to his right, desperate to find the silk thread. Maybe the water had pushed wind ahead of it; maybe the absence of silk didn’t mean he was moving deeper into the tunnels. If he only had more light; it was dark as pitch in here. How was he supposed to see something thinner than a human hair?

Finn thought back to DHI version 1.6, when he’d been able to briefly turn his human self into a hologram. That particular phenomenon had surprised even Wayne and the Imagineers. The upgrade to 2.0 had stripped him of that ability; again, no one understood why or how.

With the water rising again at his ankles, with the sound of Chernabog thrashing in the flood, Finn came to a realization. The trigger for “all clear,” as they’d called the 1.6 phenomenon, was to lose your fear. Not hide your fear, not cover it up, but lose it. Completely.

What if the ability had been within the 2.0 upgrade all along, but the rules about losing one’s fear had changed? Everything else in 2.0 was enhanced. Why not all clear as well?

Losing one’s fear wasn’t enough. What was more than losing one’s fear?

How could losing his fear be more than losing his fear completely?

Chernabog roared. There was no doubt: he’d freed himself. And he was coming closer.

“To resist her power is futile. With her you must lose yourself to win.” Wayne had said that before abruptly changing the subject.

Not lose yourself, you idiot! Finn chastised himself. “Lose your self.”

Your identity. Your ego. All sense of “you.” A deeper place than fear.

He closed his eyes and blocked out all sound—only to realize that to block something out, he had to be something. If he was something, he was self. He tried to think of a physical description for “nothing.” His thought jumped from thing to another; but any thing was not nothing: no-thing. He had to imagine no-thing.

Space. Black. Cold. Silent. No gravity. Finn put himself there: into space, consumed by its full emptiness. Its no-thingness.

His head felt light; in fact, he didn’t have a head. Or arms. Or wet feet. He opened his eyes.

He was glowing. Not like 1.6. No blue outline around his hologram, but a hologram just the same. And a hologram that emitted a faint amount of light—just enough to see a single bluish thread of spider silk stuck to the wall.

* * *

Willa looked up at the steep cave wall, and imagined easily how she’d climb up. The grips, the crux… The one sport where I top Charlene, she thought wryly.

“Charlene, I’m going to hide up above. But for the record, I still say this plan sucks. You shouldn’t be going out there alone.”

“Of course I should. I’m fast. Superfast, as a matter of fact. You think those middle-aged freaks can possibly catch me?”