Taking a train halfway across the world was only the beginning of Jon's adventure. Tomb thieves and darker, older things are haunting the archaeological site at Alarna. Jon and his brother Tam, the unusual Blackfeather children, and the dig artist A...
Jon heard Kara's voice echo down the passageway as dust settled around them. A rock had fallen and rolled not far from Tam's feet. Jon shivered and looked at the others.
"She's alive." Djaren smiled. "That's good."
Ellea was still frowning. The remaining robed men stood around them, looking with dismay at the fallen rubble, and their comrades under it.
"Who shall I send after her?" The rotting man grinned at the children. One of his teeth was coming loose from his jaw, hanging by only a thread of flesh.
"Send me," Djaren said. He stood up straight, and faced the rotting monster, looking, to Jon's eyes, very brave indeed.
"No, no, young master Blackfeather." The surname was pronounced like a curse. "I have other plans for you." There was something dreadful in the way the rotting man said those words.
Ellea gasped. She was staring at the rotting man with huge eyes, and a look of first horror, then hate. She whipped her head about to stare hard at the two men holding Djaren. First one and then the other took their hands off him, suddenly screaming. One ran back the way they had come, wailing, and the other fell to the floor, writhing and howling. Ellea and Anna's captors were next to begin acting strangely.
"No!" Djaren yelled, "Ellea, stop! No!"
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Ellea, free now, glared across at the men holding Jon and Tam. One let go to begin striking at his own body, wildly. Another fell over in a faint.
"Run!" Tam yelled, pulling Jon along after him.
Djaren ran over to his sister and picked her up. "Never!" he told her, wrapping his arms around her, and running with her after Tam, Anna and Jon down the rubble-strewn passage into darkness, away from the rotted man, and toward the pickpocket girl.
"Not for any reason. You know that," Jon heard Djaren's tense, frightened sounding voice say, just ahead.
"You don't know. You don't know what he was thinking." Ellea sounded teary, and very frightened. "He is very bad. He is the worst thing ever. He wants bad things."
"We won't let him catch us, but you must never do that again. Father and Mother won't be happy."
"Stop!" The pickpocket's whisper halted them.
From the flickering torchlight behind them came the sound of the rotting man's rasping shouts.
"What is the next trap?" the pickpocket demanded.
"The door didn't say about any more traps," Jon said, breathlessly.
"Well don't take another step forward. Your door is about to kill you," the pickpocket hissed.
Jon squinted in the dim light. "Step where?"
"We should light a candle. Does anyone have a candle?" Tam asked.
