Rodomonte's Revenge (5 page)

“What do we do?” Tom's laser was firing a steady green stream. He might as well have been trying to put out a forest fire with an eyedropper.

“Keep running!”

They followed the wall, sprinting away
from the spiders behind them only to run into more spiders ahead. With two lasers blazing, they cut a path around the wall as they frantically searched for an opening. There was none. The path narrowed.

“What do we do?” Tom asked again. His sword hacked at the webs flying around them. The air looked like a fishing net.

“How do I know?” Brett turned to the sky. “Willie, help us! How do we get in?”

I'M WORKING ON IT
.

“Work faster!” A web hit Brett's chest, knocking him against the wall. He cut it loose.

I'M DOING THE BEST I CAN
.

“Lately that hasn't been enough.” The spiders surrounded them, forcing their backs against the wall.

There has to be a way out of this, Brett thought. As hard as it had been to find, every video game he had ever played had a way out of everything. He had to believe that this one did, too.

Believe. Maybe that was the key.

A spider nipped his shoulder, drawing blood. He ducked beneath its jaws and came up straight with his sword, slitting its belly
open. “Willie, can the game use the helmets to monitor thought patterns?”

THEY WEREN'T DESIGNED FOR THAT, BUT I SUPPOSE IT CAN
.

“Then the computer can tell if the players believe something is true?”

THAT'S WAY BEYOND OUR PROGRAMMING CAPABILITIES
.

Brett jumped to the side to avoid a web, almost bowling Tom over. Spiders swarmed in to where he had been, cutting the ground they'd been defending in half. Now they were back to back, hacking and shooting in every direction. “Do you call what's happening to us now within your programming capabilities?”

GOOD POINT. MAYBE THE COMPUTER CAN KNOW IF THE PLAYERS BELIEVE SOMETHING. WHY?

Brett didn't have time to answer. “Tom, it's up to you to hold them off.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“I might have a way out of this.” He lowered his weapons, turned to the wall, and closed his eyes.

“You're praying? Isn't it a little late for that?”

“Just keep them off me so I can concentrate.”

Tom's laser zinged. Webs splatted, and dying spiders hissed. Brett ignored them. In his mind he pictured the wall, huge and gray and impassable. He forced himself to see a gate in it, a gate large enough to run through.

“I believe,” he said aloud. “At least I
think
I believe.”

He opened his eyes. The wall was still there, as solid as ever.

Maybe I'm wrong, he thought. Maybe I'm wasting my time.

“Hurry up!” Tom's sword swept so fast that the blade was a blur. His face dripped sweat, and his chest heaved. “I can only hold them off for a few seconds longer.”

Brett closed his eyes again. He had to be right. There
was
a gate here. He didn't just think there was; he
knew
there was.

With his eyes closed, he stepped forward.

Where the wall should have been, there was nothing. He took another step. There was still nothing. He opened his eyes. He was standing in a threshold arching ten feet over his head. It opened onto a room inside the castle.

“It worked!” He ran through the gate into the room. He looked back to see Tom still fighting. “Come on, Tom!”

“Come on where?” Tom turned his head. “Where did you go?”

“I'm in here, on the other side of the gate.”

“What gate?” Tom looked straight at him, but didn't see him. “All I see is a wall. Where are you?”

“You have to believe there's a gate, Tom.”

“A gate where?”

“In the wall. Come on!”

Tom turned and ran, grimacing as if he expected to mash his face into the granite. He stumbled into the room. The gate closed off into cold gray stone, leaving the spiders on the outside. He collapsed to the floor, his chest heaving.

WELCOME TO THE FOURTH LEVEL OF RODOMONTE'S REVENGE: THE THRONE ROOM ANTECHAMBER. YOU ARE GOING TO FIND THIS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE WALL
.

Brett laughed and danced in place. “We made it!”

Tom still lay gasping on the floor. “Do you want to know something?”

“What?”

“I never believed there was a gate there. All I saw when I ran toward the wall was stone.”

Brett quit dancing. “Then how did you get through?”

“It didn't make any difference if I believed in the gate. I just had to believe that you did.”

“Well, it worked.”

Tom wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Let's just hope that everything else we need works, too.”

The antechamber looked exactly as Brett expected an antechamber to look. Rich tapestries hung from the walls, the floor was so highly polished he could see himself in it, and treasure lay in piles everywhere: chests stuffed with gold and silver, and jewels overflowing baskets the size of barrels. But what was in the room next door, which Brett could see through a portal, made the antechamber look as poor as a soup kitchen. It didn't have chests of gold and silver; it had dump truck loads of it. It didn't have baskets of jewels; it had football stadiums
bursting with them. Behind a throne in the middle of the room was a gilded mirror that doubled everything, making the treasure seem twice as valuable.

And all that treasure was free for the taking—unless the twelve-foot giant sitting on the throne had something to say about it.

“That must be Rodomonte,” Brett said.

Tom nodded. “What the Lakers wouldn't give for him.”

“Maybe that's where he got his treasure.”

“Let's take him out.”

Brett grabbed Tom's arm as he strode toward the throne. “Wait.”

“Why?”

“The antechamber is its own level.”

“So?”

“So it won't let us just waltz right into the throne room.” He looked at the ceiling. “What's to stop us, Willie?”

A FORCE FIELD BETWEEN THE LEVELS
.

“Really?” Tom stuck his sword through the portal. The threshold glowed crimson. In a blinding flash the blade vaporized, leaving only a puff of dry-smelling smoke. “Looks like a force field to me.”

“How do we get by it?” Brett asked.

WELL …
 Willie paused,
YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LIKE THIS
.

“What do we have to do?”

THE ONLY WAY INTO THE THRONE ROOM IS FOR ONE OF YOU TO NEUTRALIZE THE FIELD. WHILE IT'S RECHARGING, THE OTHER CAN GET THROUGH
.

“How do we do that?”

ONE OF YOU WILL HAVE TO BE VAPORIZED
.

“Vaporized?”

THE IDEA OF THE GAME IS TO REACH THIS POINT WITH ONE PLAYER HAVING AT LEAST TWO LIVES LEFT, SO HE CAN SACRIFICE ONE TO GET THROUGH THE FIELD. BUT IN YOUR CASE
 …

“In our case it isn't a game,” Brett completed the thought for him. “In our case one of us really has to die.”

He looked at Tom. Tom looked at him. They didn't say anything for a long time.

Finally Tom nodded. “I'll do it. I don't have a sword anyway. You'll have a better chance of beating Rodomonte.”

Brett shook his head. “I'll do it. With all your ability you'll probably become a pro athlete. You have a chance to be somebody.”

“I'll be a minor-league ballplayer for the
rest of my life. You go. You're the one with the brains.”

“I don't have any brains. You have the brains.”

“Don't argue with me on this one, Brett. I'm way ahead of you.”

“If you're way ahead of me, it's because you're smarter than I am. I'll go first.”

“I'm smarter? You're too dumb to know how much smarter you are than I am.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They argued for five minutes, each offering brilliant reasons for why he was less intelligent. Brett was about to prove how dumb he was by leaping into the field when more words appeared on the ceiling.

I HAVE A SOLUTION
.

“What kind of solution?” Tom asked. “A quiz? Ask me a question. I'm sure to get it wrong.”

I KNOW HOW I CAN GET YOU BOTH THROUGH. IF I SEND SO MANY MESSAGES TO THE GAME THAT IT HAS TO INTERRUPT ITS PROGRAM TO ADDRESS THEM ALL
—

“Then we can dive through while it's interrupted.”
Brett laughed. “Willie, you're a genius!”

“He's a genius if it works,” Tom said. “Don't be so sure that it will. He didn't do such a good job in the tunnel.”

I'VE RUN A PRETTY GOOD ANALYSIS ON THIS ONE. I SHOULD BE RIGHT
.

“Is ‘should' the best you can come up with?”

IT IS UNLESS YOU GIVE ME MORE TIME
.

“Take as much as you need.”

Brett sat on a treasure chest to wait. He suddenly felt dizzy. Somehow the treasure chest had changed. It had grown; his feet no longer touched the floor. He looked at Tom. He had changed, too.

“What's the matter with you, Tom? You look about two feet tall.”

Tom laughed. “
I
look two feet tall? Take a look at yourself.”

Brett hopped down from the chest. It was more of a drop than a hop. Not only could he no longer sit on the chest, but he couldn't even reach the lock.

“Willie, I think you'd better hurry.”

WHY
?

“We're shrinking!”

The antechamber was suddenly a maze of giant diamonds and coins the size of wagon wheels. “Tom, where are you?”

“Over here.” Tom's voice sounded like a mouse's in a cartoon. Brett couldn't see him. A coin was in his way.

“You'd better hurry, Willie,” he shouted. “We're shrinking to almost nothing!”

YOU'RE NOT GIVING ME TIME TO CHECK, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME ON THIS ONE
.

“Just tell us what to do.”

I'M READY TO SEND THE MESSAGES
.
THE FIRST ONE WILL BE THE WORDS “START RUNNING.” WHEN YOU SEE IT, RUN FOR THE PORTAL AS IF YOUR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT
.

“They do,” Tom said. He had muscled his way up onto a ruby for a better view.

GET READY. I'M ABOUT TO SEND THEM
.

Tom dropped off the ruby and into a crouch, his eyes fixed on the portal as if it were an Olympic finish line. Brett braced his feet against the treasure chest, which towered above him like a skyscraper. He knew that Tom had the advantage—he had seen how fast
he could steal second base—but if he could just get a good start, then he would get through, too, and if they both got through …

Then they would have to kill a giant.

START RUNNING
.

Tom exploded so fast that he was diving through the portal before Brett had even begun to move. It was then that Brett realized that shrinking had made the relative distance between him and the portal greater. What had been ten feet was now a hundred yards. He swallowed loudly, or loudly for a throat a quarter inch wide. He never could run sprints.

Tom lay on the throne room floor, looking like a discarded prize out of a Cracker Jack box. Willie had been right about the force field; he'd made it. “Come on, Brett!”

Brett ran as fast as his little legs would carry him. He must have been doing well over a quarter mile an hour. He dodged a coin, hurdled a pearl, and raced for the portal, which loomed above him now like the roof of the world. It seemed a million miles away.

I'll never make it, he thought. Not on these legs.

He dived through the portal. He had to get up and dive again; it looked twenty feet thick now. The walls glowed, then snapped and crackled. Something flashed. A tiny wisp of smoke rose into the air.

WELCOME TO THE FIFTH LEVEL OF RODOMONTE'S REVENGE: THE THRONE ROOM. YOU ARE GOING TO FIND THIS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE ANTECHAMBER
.

Brett lay on the floor beside Tom, his legs hanging down into a crack in the floor. The bottom of his left shoe was burned off.

I'M A GENIUS
, Willie typed.

The change in level had stopped their shrinking, but since Brett had spent more time in the antechamber, he was smaller than Tom. He only came up to Tom's waist.