Astonishing.
That sounded good, but Pinch was wracked with indecision. Even though the world of humans had rejected him, he knew that if he wanted to wield the sword, he would have to
return
to that world and pray that it embraced him. On the other hand, the world of monsters had welcomed him and it would take only one more sip of the blood of the Fifth to be transformed
permanently
. The choice was not a moral one - Pinch had left morality behind long ago - he was now only concerned with being on the winning side, whatever the cost.
“Rid yourself of the weapon,” the Queen of Nightmares purred, “and join me for ever. Become my most special baby.”
“Don’t do it, Pinch,” another voice said and Pinch
looked up to see Theodore enter the throne room. “She lies - you know she does. Take the sword and kill her with it.”
The Queen of Nightmares glared at Theodore. “Do not listen to him. Destroy the sword and then destroy them.
All
of them.”
“You can’t trust her, Pinch,” Brooke said, stepping up behind Theodore. “This doesn’t have to end badly. You can be a hero today. Kill her now.”
“I…I don’t know,” Pinch replied, trembling.
The Queen of Nightmares spoke then, her voice kind and soothing. “When their world despised you, I took you in. I welcomed you as one of my own. I made you my son.”
My son
. That sounded nice.
“Kill her!” Violet yelled. “Kill her now! You’re the only one of us that can wield the sword and do it!”
“Join me, son,” the Queen of Nightmares said, her voice as loud and clear as a church bell. “Join me and rule the world of humans by my side. Seek your vengeance against them! Claim your power! BECOME THE MONSTROUS THING YOU WERE BORN TO BE!”
“You’re right,” Pinch said with sudden finality, turning to her. “You took me in when they did not. I’m sorry to
have ever doubted you. I’ll love and protect you forever…Mother.”
And, with that, Pinch roared in fury and ran towards Violet and the others, the Sword of Sacrifice held high above his head, shining brightly.
Violet reacted instantly. She rushed towards Pinch, axe raised. Her weapon was clearly no match for his and her Banishing skills were nowhere near the equal of a Double-Threat’s - but thoughts of doubt did not cloud her mind. She was a weapon of destruction, as Theodore liked to say, and had only one goal in mind.
Stop Pinch
.
As the two of them neared each other, time seemed to slow. Violet knew she was only going to get one shot at this before Pinch took her out. As he brought the Sword of Sacrifice down towards her, she leaped into the air and leaned back, almost parallel to the ground, her legs pointing straight at her wild-eyed opponent like a spear.
Then they made contact. Violet’s feet slammed into Pinch’s ribcage so hard that she heard bones crack. Pinch flew backwards from the enormous force of the blow, missing her with the blade by less than a hair’s breadth. He tumbled helplessly across the throne room, end over end, sword flashing crazily, then began
to arc back down…straight towards the Queen of Nightmares.
“No!” she screamed as Pinch, still gripping the Sword of Sacrifice, slammed into her, mistakenly
hacking off her upper left arm
.
It fell to the floor with a wet thump, spasming and jerking. Pinch landed next to it, the force of the impact knocking the weapon from his hand. The blade slid across the glossy floor before finally coming to rest in the very centre of the chamber.
“What have you done?” the Queen of Nightmares shrieked, staring in shock at her missing arm as Pinch crawled away, horrified. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME, YOU FIEND?”
Back in the Slumber, Charlie raced towards the colossal shadow version of the Queen of Nightmares. He was in terrible pain from her last attack and already he could feel the supernatural force of the Slumber greedily sapping away his will to fight. But he knew that his only chance was to keep coming after her and hope that he found a weakness. As he neared her, she pulled back two of her massive hands, preparing to strike him once again…and then suddenly she collapsed to the
ground, eyes wild with pain and confusion.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped as her upper left arm disappeared. “What’s happening to me?”
Something bad
, Charlie thought gleefully as he ran towards her.
Bad for you, good for me…
Then he leaped up over her prone body and sailed, headlong, into the enormous, silvery portal beyond.
Charlie sat up in the throne room of the nautilus shell to find it in utter chaos. The Queen of Nightmares was clutching at the protruding bone of her missing arm, shrieking furiously, while Pinch wailed in sorrow.
“I’m so sorry, my lady! It was an accident! I never meant to do such a thing!”
“Then fix it!” she screeched. “Get rid of the miserable sword before it causes more harm!”
The sword
.
Charlie saw it in the middle of the vast throne room, shining brilliantly. He leaped to his feet and ran towards it.
“Charlie!” Violet shouted. “You’re back!”
Pinch, seeing Charlie, scrambled after the weapon as well.
No…
Charlie thought.
Don’t let him get it!
But the traitorous man was much closer to the blade than Charlie. With a cackle, Pinch dived for it—
—
and promptly disappeared into a portal that had snapped open right in front of him.
“Bye bye, Pinch,” Brooke said, slamming closed the portal she had just opened. She turned to Charlie. “You can thank me later - now get that sword!”
Charlie did. His fist closed around the beautiful black hilt of the weapon and instantly, he felt its energy flow through him like a raging river. Holding the blade aloft, Charlie turned towards the Queen of Nightmares, fire in his eyes.
“This ends now.”
“You think so? Let’s find out!”
She raised her three remaining arms. With quick flicks of each hand, she summoned Fire, Air and Earth Golems inside the cavernous throne room.
“Destroy him, my babies!”
They swivelled their brutish heads towards Charlie.
“Charlie, watch out!” Brooke yelled and began to run towards him, but Violet yanked her back.
“Let him handle this - it’s his fight now.”
“But we can’t just sit here and do
nothing
!”
Just then, a portal popped open in the throne room
and Pinch leaped through it, returning from the Nether.
Violet smiled grimly. “Who said we’re going to do
nothing
?”
As Charlie waded into his fight against the Golems, Violet, Brooke and Theodore closed in on Pinch. Even though it was three against one, Pinch was a Double-Threat, which made victory against him by no means certain.
“Get out of my way!” Charlie shouted, swinging the Sword of Sacrifice at the Air Golem. Instead of passing through the massive creature, as soon as the blade made contact, the Golem disintegrated with a howl - its death cry sounded like the high-pitched shriek of a hurricane.
Wow!
Charlie thought.
This sword is pretty awesome!
He spun around and swung at the advancing Earth Golem. It collapsed against the might of the blade like a sandcastle falling to an incoming wave. Then, with a sideways leap, Charlie turned to the Fire Golem and brought his weapon crashing down. As soon as it connected, the Fire Golem exploded in a blast of embers that reminded Charlie of cinders swirling up a fireplace.
“Don’t get too pleased with yourself,” the Queen of Nightmares hissed. “You’ve only just begun to fight!”
Her long, crimson hands began to flick rapidly - an orchestral composer conducting a symphony of death -
and Golem after Golem sprang to life in the throne room, thundering towards Charlie. He swung at them with increasing confidence, destroying every single one with just the briefest touch of the blade, as he advanced steadily towards the Queen.
“Edward!” she screamed. “Get rid of him!”
“Of course, my lady!” Pinch yelled back, as he fended off Violet’s attacks while dodging the many portals that Theodore and Brooke threw beneath him. He glanced over his shoulder to see Charlie slay the last of the new Elemental Golems that the Fifth had summoned.
“EDWARD!” she shrieked. “HE’S HERE! HELP ME!”
Purple fire exploded across Pinch as he summoned a portal directly underneath Charlie. Leaping to avoid it, Charlie flung himself forward - but he didn’t clear the portal completely. He tumbled into it and, grasping wildly, managed to snag the nearest leg of the Queen’s massive throne, stopping his fall.
“Charlie!” Violet yelled. “Hang on!”
The Sword of Sacrifice grew heavy in Charlie’s hand. He looked down to discover that he was hanging above the magma well in the Netherforge. Even from this distance, it sucked at the Ancient Weapon with violent force.
“Close the portal, Edward!” the Queen of Nightmares screeched. “Cut off the boy’s arm! Do it now! End this!”
Pinch began to snap the portal closed - when Theodore punched him so hard in the face that he collapsed to the ground.
“That portal doesn’t close till
I
say it does!” Theodore yelled, then leaped on to Pinch’s chest and began to pound him.
Charlie, meanwhile, struggled to hold on to the sword - but it was a losing battle. The Nether Core sucked at it with an almost human desperation and the Ancient Weapon slipped lower and lower in Charlie’s sweaty hand until he was only clinging to it with the tips of his fingers. The Queen of Nightmares walked to the edge of the portal and stared down at him, a triumphant smile on her face.
“You’ve lost, Charlie Benjamin. It looks like the Sword of Sacrifice will now claim at least
one more
sacrifice.”
And then Charlie lost his grip on the wondrous weapon.
The sword that they had all fought so hard to obtain fell down through the chill air before finally crashing into the well of bubbling blue magma that led to the Core of the Nether.
It bobbed there momentarily…and then was gone.
“No…” Charlie gasped. “It can’t be…”
“Oh, but it is,” the Queen of Nightmares replied, her purple, jewel-eyes glittering with hate. She leaned down and caressed his trembling hand - the one that still clung desperately to her throne. “Now it’s time to send you back to the Slumber.”
“Sure,” Charlie replied. “Right after I send
you
to the Core…”
He reached up with his one free hand and grabbed the Queen of Nightmares by her silvery hair. Letting go of the throne, he yanked her with him through Pinch’s portal and into the Nether, where they both fell, tumbling end over end, towards the well of the Netherforge far below.
C
harlie and the Fifth hit the magma with the force of a meteorite, sending great sheets of the bubbling blue liquid high into the air. The Queen of Nightmares wailed in agony as it boiled her alive.
“IT HURTS! IT KILLS!!!”
She scrambled to escape, but Charlie clung to her tightly and they were both quickly pulled under by the irresistible draw of the Nether Core. Even though the lava didn’t hurt Charlie, he couldn’t breathe and his lungs desperately ached for air. The Queen of Nightmares thrashed wildly in his grip and he could see chunks of her alien flesh ripping away as they plunged deeper and deeper into the well.
So this is how it ends
, Charlie thought.
I’m going to drown here…but at least I’ll take her with me.
Down they hurtled as Charlie’s lungs screamed for oxygen. The Queen of Nightmares spasmed in his arms while the magma tore at her - but soon her struggles became less violent.
Will it kill her?
Charlie wondered.
At least before it kills me?
He doubted it. He could feel himself ready to pass out from lack of air, which he knew would give her an opportunity to swim back up through the lava and possibly escape.
And then his arm touched something—
The Sword of Sacrifice.
He reached out and grabbed it. The blade energised him instantly and - with his last remaining breath - he let go of the Queen and then plunged the magnificent weapon straight into her terrible black heart. As soon as he did so, she exploded in a geyser of green blood, putrid flesh and wicked dreams; the only thing that escaped was her final shriek of agony, which bubbled up through the magma and into the endless night of the Nether.
The Fire Golems descending on the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm suddenly exploded into clouds of cinders and were blown away. In Prague, the Water Golems hurling themselves out of the Vltava River were vaporised, leaving behind only mist, which soon dissipated. The German capital of Berlin, under siege
from a horde of thundering Earth Golems, abruptly fell silent when the monsters crumbled like ancient ruins, falling to the ground in great heaps of sand. And Air Golems - viciously dismantling the Eiffel Tower in Paris - vanished like wisps of smoke in the strong wind that swept across from the River Seine.
And the Golems weren’t the only thing destroyed along with the Queen of Nightmares.
Her terrible creation known as the Slumber also vanished the very second her dark heart stopped beating. Back at the Nightmare Academy, Mama Rose awoke and glanced around to discover that all the students were regaining consciousness, finally free of the grip of that awful place.
“Well,
that
was interesting,” she declared, rising to her feet.
Far away, deep in the throne room of the evil one’s lair, the Headmaster opened her eyes and looked over to see Rex and Tabitha beginning to stir as they escaped the seductive hold of the Slumber and rejoined her in the land of the living.
“Headmaster!” Brooke shouted. “Are you OK?”
The Headmaster nodded weakly. “The Fifth is dead?”
“We think so,” Violet replied. “Charlie must have killed her.”
“Dang, I knew that kid would come in handy,” Rex said with a grin, propping himself up on his elbows. “Where is he?”
Violet and Theodore glanced at each other uncertainly.
“Gone,” Theodore said finally, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Gone?” Tabitha asked, struggling to her feet. “What does that mean?”
Violet shook her head. “It means we don’t know. He fell into the Netherforge. We haven’t seen him since…”
There was silence as everyone struggled to process that - and then the quiet was broken by the unwelcome sound of Nethercreatures stirring in the hive of hallways and chambers beyond the throne room.
“They’ll be coming for us,” the Headmaster said. “The Fifth may be dead - and her Golems along with her - but the rest of the monsters in our world are still alive and on the attack. We must leave.”
“But what about Charlie?” Theodore asked as the sound of the Nethercreatures drew closer.
The Headmaster closed her eyes tightly. “He has always been a resourceful boy. We must hope that he has one last trick up his sleeve…”
“He better have,” Theodore said, looking behind him. Pinch stood there beside the empty throne of the Queen
of Nightmares. “Because if anything happens to him, I’m going to take it out on
you
- you traitor!”
Pinch shrugged. “Everyone dies sooner or later. For Charlie, it’s just sooner - that’s all.”
“You filthy little—”
Suddenly, a portal snapped open in the air above the throne room and Charlie Benjamin came crashing through, along with a flood of magma from the well in the Netherforge. He slammed into the floor of the lair on all fours, gasping for breath.
“Charlie!” Violet yelled.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
He staggered to his feet and, still holding the Sword of Sacrifice, stepped out of the jet of bubbling blue liquid that poured into the room. Theodore, overcome with emotion, grabbed his best friend and gave him a big hug.
“You idiot! I thought you were GFG!”
“Gone For Good?” Charlie asked.
Theodore nodded. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
It was a joyous reunion - for the few seconds it lasted. Within moments, dozens of Nethercreatures swarmed into the throne room. Charlie raised his sword - ready to defend them in spite of his exhaustion - when he realised that, for once, he didn’t
need
to. The magma from the
Nether Core, which still poured in from the open portal, spilled across the floor of the throne room, instantly incinerating every monster it touched.
Netherstalkers wailed as their spindly legs came into contact with the deadly stuff. Darklings - low on the ground to begin with - were quickly overcome, as were the Dangeroos leaping into the chamber. Their muscular legs shot out from under them as soon as they landed and, within moments, they were consumed by the wave of lethal lava. As it spread across the floor, Pinch glanced down to see that its outermost edge was nearly touching the severed arm of the Queen of Nightmares. He leaped towards it and snatched the limb out of harm’s way before the magma could destroy it.
“What are you doing?” Charlie asked, aghast.
Pinch smiled. “Becoming
glorious
again! One final sip from the blood of the Queen is all I need to permanently return me to my beautiful, monstrous form!” He raised his hand and opened a portal to the Nether. “Till we meet again…”
“You’re not going anywhere with that!” Theodore shouted and leaped towards him. The treacherous man stumbled backwards, and Theodore was only able to grab on to the hand of the severed arm.
“Let it go!” Pinch shouted.
“Make me!”
They began tugging at the strange prize like two kids fighting over a wishbone at Christmas dinner. Suddenly, three of the Queen’s long fingers - gripped securely by Theodore - snapped off from the rest of the hand. He stared down at them in revulsion.
“Eww.”
“Enjoy!” Pinch said with a cackle, then turned and leaped into the Nether, still holding the arm of the horrific creature that Charlie had just killed. Moments later, the portal slammed closed behind him. Pinch was gone.
Magma began to overflow the vast chamber, flooding into the rest of the lair, leaving slain Nethercreatures in its wake.
“We’d better go,” Brooke said and, with a wave of her hand, she opened up a portal of her own. Within moments, everyone had escaped through it, leaving the inside of the vast nautilus shell as still and quiet as a tomb.
At first, Charlie thought he had returned to the Slumber, and he could tell from the look on the Headmaster’s face that she thought so too.
But then he realised where they really were - in the grassy meadow that led to the banks of the lake where
the Trout of Truth lived. It was the only place in the Nether that was both beautiful and monster-free. Charlie breathed in deeply, finally allowing himself to relax a little.
“I can’t believe it’s finally over.”
“Thanks to you, Mr Benjamin,” the Headmaster said.
Charlie shook his head. “Thanks to
all
of us. I never could have got the sword to begin with - heck, I never could even have survived long enough to use it - without my friends.”
“I stand corrected. You have all been…spectacular.”
The youngsters beamed.
“There you are!”
Everyone turned to see Sir Thomas, still in his nightshirt, gripping his mace like a hammer. The deranged knight had made his way across the white stepping stones that led to the large, flat rock in the very centre of the lake where the Trout of Truth lived. Dark, glassy water surrounded him on all sides.
“Once again, you magicked me, you nasty children!”
“Who’s this clown?” Rex asked, hitching his thumbs in his belt loops.
Theodore sighed. “Ah, just this dumb knight we picked up.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Sir Thomas, you might want to get away
from there and come back to shore!”
“Preposterous!” the knight yelled back. “I will go where I please, sprout! I have examined much of this unnatural area and now I intend to explore this lake!”
The children glanced at each other, grinning.
“This is going to be
funny
,” Theodore said.
Charlie walked towards the water. “Seriously, I’d listen to Theodore if I were you, Sir Thomas! Get off the lake before you say another word!”
“Do you dare to threaten a knight of England, lad? I have been slaying men and beasties since before you were born!”
“
Way
before,” Theodore muttered.
“My trusty mace and I are a fearless team! We have killed many vicious enemies in our world and slaughtered countless Gorgons in your own - no thanks to you! I am the bravest man alive!”
Theodore chuckled. “And here it comes…”
Sir Thomas stood defiantly on the white rock at the very centre of the lake as Theodore started counting.
“One…two…” As soon as the boy said ‘three’, a gigantic, glistening fish - the Trout of Truth - exploded from the depths and, to Sir Thomas’s astonishment, swallowed him whole. The great Trout slammed back
into the water with a mighty crash.
“I take it he’s
not
the bravest man alive?” the Headmaster asked with a sly smile, and everyone burst into laughter. They all waited patiently for the Trout of Truth to resurface and spit out Sir Thomas…but the great creature was nowhere to be seen. “My goodness. Sir Thomas must have been
quite
a liar for the Trout to keep him under this long…”
Just then, the Trout of Truth burst out of the water and hurled Sir Thomas from its mouth. The knight, covered in fish goop, flew through the air before slamming ungracefully into the ground. He struggled to his feet, and then slipped back down on the patch of Trout slime beneath him.
“Preposterous!” he roared. A fresh round of laughter erupted from the group.
“What’s he doing here anyway?” Violet asked, smiling happily - it struck Charlie that it had been a long time since he had seen her do that.
“This is where I put him,” Brooke replied. “It’s the only place in the Nether I know of that’s safe. That’s why I dumped Director Drake here too.”
At the mention of the Director, the laughter died away.
“Drake’s here?” Tabitha asked. “I haven’t seen him…”
Rex shook his head. “Me neither, but I doubt that snake is eager to let us find him. Heck, I bet he’s probably hiding out there in those trees somewhere.” The cowboy gestured to the woods at the far side of the lake. “One thing’s for sure - if you put him here, he’s
still
here unless he got help gettin’ out.”
Charlie glanced at the sheer mountain walls that surrounded them on all sides. Rex was right - they kept the monsters of the Nether out…but they would also have kept Director Drake
in
.
“Go and find your father,” the Headmaster said, turning to Theodore. “And bring him here immediately. In fact, bring
everyone
here.” She turned and looked out over the glassy lake where the Trout of Truth lived. Her eyes grew distant and cold.
“It is time to settle the matter of Director Drake once and for all.”