Chapter Two

Roodaka’s fingers drummed the armrests of Makuta’s throne. It was a comfortable seat, smooth like marble. The armrests resembled the arched backs of Rahkshi, while the back of the seat was an oval fashioned like the Mask of Shadows. The ebony throne had been brought here in secret from the island of the Brotherhood of Makuta itself. The craftsmanship was fearsome and intimidating to gaze at, but the closer one drew, the more one could sense a fog of malice that swirled about it. Merely to touch it was to feel the presence of Makuta, but to sit in it—

Roodaka leaned back.

Her fingers ceased drumming.

A lone Boggarak attendant was present in the chamber. As the viceroy looked down, the spider seemed small. All things seemed small from this perspective.

“The time is drawing near. Almost all of my threads have been spun, and I wait only for my prey to rush headlong into the trap,” Roodaka purred. She leaned over the arm of the chair. “Always remember this, little hordeling… thought I am not a Visorak, I too can weave a web.”

The Boggarak bowed low, a slight tremble running through its frame.

Roodaka sat back again. To the right of the throne was a small, pillar-like table with a spiderweb carved into the top. Eight carved statuettes were positioned on the table — six for each Toa Hordika, one for Sidorak, and one for a Visorak spider.

“The six Toa are growing desperate, torn between saving their precious Matoran and saving themselves from an eternity in their monstrous new forms.”

Roodaka swiped her claw, knocking all the Toa Hordika figures off the table and scattering around the smooth floor with a crash. “Desperate Toa make mistakes. And in this game, one mistake is all you are allowed.”

She picked up the Sidorak statue in her claws, turning it over as she examined it. “Ah, Sidorak, my “king”… so secure in your power over the horde. So confident in our coming alliance. So certain of victory.”

She crushed the figure to pieces in her claws.

“So very, very foolish,” she finished.

Roodaka glanced at the blue Visorak. “Where I come from, hordeling, there is a rite of passage—a mountain that two climb together. The sky rains fire… the grasses are filled with acid… and the rock itself tries to devour you as you scale its slopes.”

The viceroy chuckled. Before she was viceroy, before she served Makuta, she, too, had scaled the Mountain. As was custom, a climbing partner had been chosen for her.

It was a long trip, but one they had endured together. Midway to the summit, she had been caught in an acidic pool of quicksand that caught her and held her fast. She would have burned for the rest of whatever short life she had remaining if he hadn’t risked his to pull her out. The two shared stories, carried each other’s equipment, and guarded each other against vulture Rahi.

Soon the end was in sight.

“Almost to the summit, my companion cried out,” Roodaka continued. “His foot was caught in a crevice. The Mountain knew he was there. The choice was mine. I could go back and save him… or take advantage of the Mountain’s distraction, and reach the top.”

Roodaka sat straight. “I made my first bargain that day, hordeling. I scaled the rock in safety… and the Mountain enjoyed its feast.”

The viceroy looked at the ground, where the ruined Sidorak statuette lay. Beside it were the fallen Toa Hordika icons. She found her eyes settling on the black icon of the Toa of Earth.

“Which Toa do you think will make a similar bargain to save their insignificant little life?” Roodaka wondered aloud. “Will it be Whenua, who has spent his life among Rahi and now may become one himself?”

✴        ✴        ✴

Whenua and Bomonga moved slowly through one of the Archives’ older wings. Stepping through an archway, they moved warily past a mangled door that had been blown off its hinges. Whether it had been smashed open by the Great Cataclysm or a Rahi’s escape, neither could say. It made little difference now.

“Careful. Rahi are everywhere down here,” Bomonga muttered, holding a lightstone high.

Whenua turned from the destroyed door. “I thought they all escaped the Archives? Why would they be here?”

“Visorak think they’re gone too,” Bomonga replied. “So what better place to hide from them?”

A loud crash rumbled through the walls, and the weakened structure trembled.

“Someone’s ‘hiding’ really loudly…” Whenua muttered.

The wall exploded open, and Toa Hordika Nuju was blown through, colliding against the far wall. “Nuju! What—?” Whenua began.

Rahaga Kualus sprang through the wall’s hole. “Look out!” he shouted. “It’s right behind me!”

Whenua helped Nuju to his feet. “What is? And what are you doing in the Archives?”

“I had never been thrown through a wall before,” Nuju groaned. “I didn’t want to miss the experience.”

Now another shape appeared in the hole made by Nuju’s impact. “It’s the Kahgarak! Run!” Kualus shouted.

“I didn’t run as a Toa,” Nuju growled, charging an ice spinner on his back. “I won’t as… whatever I am now!”

The Kahgarak hissed and launched its Rhotuka first. This one was not bright and flashy like most other Rhotuka energy wheels, but shrouded in darkness. “Rhotuka spinners are wheels of energy,” Nuju thought aloud, focusing his power and releasing it. “Let’s see what happens…” His ice spinner struck the ground, forming a flat, reflective surface.

“…when it hits a mirror of ice,” Kualus finished for him, smiling.

The Kahgarak spinner hit it and reflected off perfectly, shooting back to the Kahgarak.

“It’s reflecting!” Whenua observed.

The spinner struck the spider, opening a gateway to the field of darkness. In a flash, the entire Kahgarak was gone, before the energies, too, collapsed on themselves.

“It received the fate it planned for you—trapped in shadow,” Bomonga observed. “But it won’t stay there long. We have to move!”

The Toa Hordika of Earth took the lead, directing the group down another wing of the Archives. Finding a chamber that had suitably withstood the damage of the earthquake and Rahi, Whenua led them in.

“Lock the door, Nuju. We can plan here,” he said. “But first, I think we need some answers. What are the Visorak? Why are they here?”

“I can answer that,” Bomonga said softly. “Oh, yes… for I was one of the first to see them, and survive. They first appeared years ago… savage by nature, obedient by training. Nothing that lived could stand before them. At first, I thought the Visorak were the only danger… until I saw them. Roodaka and Sidorak.”

“That was when I knew who was really behind this,” Kualus spoke. “And it wasn’t Sidorak, or his foul viceroy. It was the—”

“Look out!” Bomonga shouted, pointing. A pair of Vohtarak mandibles was chewing through a grate near the ceiling. The grate was ripped clean off and spiders began crawling in.

“They’re coming through the ventilation system!” Whenua groaned.

Nuju began charging and firing as many Rhotuka as he could, doing his very best to form another ice dome. “Whenua, get that door open! I’ll hold them off!”

Whenua raced over to the door and swung it open. The first sight that greeted him was the face of a Kahgarak, a foot away from his.

“No! No, no, no…” Whenua kept mumbling. Fear swelled. Cornered behind, cornered in front. Panic and terror and fear and—

“This is my territory!” he roared, “Mine! You can’t be here!” His Rhotuka blasted the Kahgarak straight in the face, sending it tumbling back down the long hallway. “GET OUT!” he screamed.

Whenua was now launching spinners at a rapid pace, aiming one for every Vohtarak in the room. Not every spinner hit their target, and the Archives rumbled and shook with every blow.

“Now what!?” Bomonga asked, whirling.

Kualus nearly fell over, struggling to stay upright. “It’s Whenua! He’s given in to madness!”

Nuju swatted another Visorak away with his tools, then turned at the hissing and raging Toa of Earth. “Whenua, stop it!” he yelled over the moans of the very earth beneath them. “The structure can’t take the stress! You’ll bring the—”

An ear-splitting crack tore open in the ceiling.

“…ceiling down,” Nuju finished weakly.

With a roar like a floodtide, stone and mortar rained down on the Toa Hordika, Visorak, and Rahaga.

It fell for a very long time, burying everything in a high pile. And then, once it was done, all was silent and still.