“See?” said Rudy. “Windshields! Instinct! Told you it’d be fine!”
Brynne looked like she was going to vomit. Rudy didn’t look so great himself. Naga scales had bloomed all the way down his neck, as if he was transforming into his full snake form out of pure panic.
“Rudy,” growled Aiden.
“Look around you!” said Rudy, with a slightly guilty smile. “I mean, the views are great, right? Perfect for picture-taking…”
Aru looked to her right, trying to fight the wooziness that came with the realization that very little was protecting you from a thousand-foot plummet to certain death. When she peered through the windshield, she saw the sharp peaks of mountains cutting through a snowy mist. It was terrifying. Yet Aru had to admit it was beautiful.
They flew through the mountains and blankets of mist. At one point, Aru thought she saw the solemn eye of an elephant regarding them through the fog. But when she blinked, it disappeared.
“PREPARE FOR LANDING!” hollered Rudy.
There was no time to get ready. One moment, the palanquin calmly sailed through the air. The next moment…it dropped.
Aru screamed as the top of the palanquin popped off and her cushioned seat slipped out from under her, transforming into a parachute that erupted as the bench catapulted her into the air. For a few weightless seconds, cold blasted across her face, stealing the world from sight. When she could finally open her eyes, the mist cleared and the ground rose to meet her—
Thud.
“Ow!” said Aru.
The parachute collapsed around her, the ropes magically untethering from her gold winter coat. She stood up, wincing at the pressure of something jagged in her pocket. Aru fished it out and groaned. Welp. There went her phone. This was the seventh one she’d broken in a year.
“My mom is going to kill me,” said Aru.
“That’s amazing,” said Brynne.
“Wow, rude?” said Aru, only to realize that Brynne was pointing at something else.
They were a hundred feet away from the end of the world. It was lovely and exhilarating, like holding your breath underwater and opening your eyes, knowing you wouldn’t be able to see this forever. Snowflakes swirled around them and made a line of trees on their right dissolve into a silvery mist. The Potatoes stood on snowy slabs of gray rock interrupted by occasional tufts of blue grass. A hundred feet away, the slabs ended at a cliff, and near the edge, carved into a huge rock face, was what looked like a cave. But its entrance was blocked by boulders. The cave was flanked on one side by a ginormous gray pillar that disappeared into the snow clouds overhead.
“I bet whoever lives there is extremely welcoming,” said Brynne dryly.
Not two yards away lay a twelve-foot-wide circle of small, sharp-looking stones that glittered in the snow. It was surrounded by patches of dangerously slick ice. Was this some kind of barrier King Jambavan had set up?
“What do we do?” asked Mini. “Just…step over these like they’re nothing?”
“Should we announce ourselves?” asked Aru. “Like, ‘We are heroes seeking the shiny thing’?”
“We should work on that wording,” said Aiden.
Aru ignored him.
“Or—Wait. Rudy, what are you doing?” asked Mini, looking deeply alarmed.
Despite the freezing temperatures, the naga had shucked off his winter jacket and hat and was doing jumping jacks in the snow.
“I—heard—he—wrestles—everyone—who—comes—in—so—I’m—warming—up,” he said.
Brynne shook her head. “Let’s just get this over with.” Aru held her breath as Brynne stretched her neck from side to side and then stepped into the circle of white stones. “KING JAMBAVAN! We respectfully ask that you let us enter so we may speak to you!”
“About the shiny,” whispered Aru.
“ABOUT THE SHINY—I mean, THE LEGENDARY SYAMANTAKA GEM!” said Brynne.
Nothing happened. The wind howled. The stones creaked.
“Maybe there’s a front door we’re not seeing?” asked Mini.
They turned away from the cave, scanning the line of trees as if there might be a sign hidden in plain sight. Aru was studying the circle of stones when she saw something else—a shadow sprawling over the snow-packed earth. She barely had a moment to wonder at it before a hot, wet wind ruffled her hair. She whirled around.
“Uh, guys?” she said. “I…I think he knows we’re here.”
Jambavan panted behind them from atop a flat boulder. He looked nothing like the being Aru remembered from the Council meetings. For one thing, he was huge. Aru had never seen a bear as big as three mature elephants.
Jambavan lumbered off the rock, his sharp claws sinking into the snow. He was covered in shaggy black fur broken only by a white moon on his chest. His muzzle was long and narrow, the fur around it matted and wet with…blood? Aru gulped. Jambavan swung his head at them. He looked feral. His shiny black eyes registered nothing. When he snorted, steam puffed into the air.
“O Lord Jambavan—” started Aru with a squeak.
“BEGONE!” he roared. “NO VISITORS! EVER!”
“It’s not like we’re here out of choice!” shot back Brynne.
Jambavan roared. The ground quaked.
“Run!” said Mini.
The Potatoes had turned on their heels and started running when the white rocks began to tremble. One moment, they were hardly more than triangles on the ground. The next, they had shot up tall as towers, sharp as teeth, and thin as needles. The gaps between the poles were barely more than a foot.
Aru skidded to a stop just inches away from the barrier. Behind her, Jambavan charged. Snow kicked up around his claws. His head was lowered, gums pulled back to reveal blood-stained teeth.
“Squeeze through!” said Mini, turning sideways and trying to work her leg through an opening in the stones.
Brynne grabbed hold of one white bar only to wince. “It stings just to touch it!”
Jambavan was closing in. Fifty feet…now twenty.
Aiden jumped in front of Aru, brandishing his scimitars.
Rudy was digging through his satchel of enchanted musical rocks. “Where did it go?!” he said, panicking. “I thought I packed the enemy-interference quartz, but THIS IS THE SOUNDTRACK TO BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!”
“Why do you even have that?” Aiden asked.
Jambavan reared up a foot away from them. Aiden swung out his scimitars and Jambavan knocked one aside with a lazy brush of his paw, sending it spinning fifty feet away. Then the bear king growled, slamming back down onto all fours.
“We were sent here by Lord Agni,” said Mini in her best calming voice. “I’m sure we can talk this over?”
Jambavan rose again on his back two legs. He stood at least seventy feet tall. When he stared down at them, his eyes were totally black.
“No.”
The monster opened his mouth, and all the blood drained from Aru’s face. Her back was pressed against one of the white rods. She could feel its stinging sensation like a soft pinch through her winter clothes.
This is it, she thought. Eaten by a literal bear. What is life?
The bear king loomed over them, claws outstretched, jaws rippling in a snarl….
Then a loud creak made him stop. Aru, who had closed her eyes for the final moments, cracked one lid open. Jambavan looked like he’d been caught in the world’s weirdest game of freeze tag.