City of the Dead Page 10

  swarmed around them, surrounding Tash and grabbing Hoole. For a moment Tash

  thought the Shi'ido would shape-shift into a Wookiee or some other ferocious

  being and fight his way to safety, but he did nothing. She added that to the

  growing list of mysteries that surrounded Hoole.

  Pylum led the mob and the two prisoners back to the cemetery. They found

  that the twisted gates had been wrenched from their settings and tossed to the

  ground. The zombies were nowhere in sight, but Tash didn't want to take

  chances. "You don't want to go in there," she said to Pylum, "trust me."

  The Master of Cerements scowled. "You fool. The dead have already risen.

  They are terrorizing the city. The graveyard is empty."

  It was true. The cemetery had become a wide field of empty holes and

  mounds of earth. The long rows of headstones had toppled. In most places the

  soil had been trampled and churned to mud by the passage of the undead. It was

  eerily quiet.

  The angry Necropolitans paused at the bizarre sight of so many upturned

  graves. Some of them cried out and wept.

  "See what the offworlders have caused," the Master of Cerements

  screeched. "Bring them to the crypt!"

  Urged on by Pylum, the Necropolitans dragged Hoole and Tash across the

  field of empty graves, toward the center of the cemetery. There, the massive

  Crypt of the Ancients still stood as solemn and ominous as ever.

  "Open the doors!" Pylum ordered.

  Some of the Necropolitans gasped. "But we've never opened up the crypt

  before!"

  The Master of Cerements held up his hand to silence them. "These are

  cursed times. The ancient laws demand that we throw the violators into the

  crypt. Open the doors!"

  Tash was amazed at how willingly the mob followed Pylum's orders. Only a

  few days ago, some of them had thought he was an old fool fretting about

  outdated superstitions. Now they were frightened enough to make him their

  leader.

  It took two or three strong men pulling at each handle, and even then the

  great doors moved reluctantly. When the doors were opened wide enough, Pylum

  ordered them to stop. "Put the offworlders inside."

  Tash and Hoole were shoved through the opening so roughly that Tash would

  have tumbled down the steep stairway if Hoole hadn't caught her arm. They

  turned back toward the opening, where they could see Pylum addressing the mob.

  "Go back to your homes! I will go into the crypt and plead with Sycorax to

  call off this evil curse. When I enter, shut the doors behind me and go back

  to your homes until all is calm again!"

  With that, Pylum entered the crypt. The Necropolitans shut the doors

  behind him, plunging all three of them into complete darkness.

  A second later there was small click and a glowrod lit up the stairwell,

  casting eerie light over Pylum's face. He looked at Tash and Hoole, and

  chuckled.

  "Those superstitious fools," he laughed.

  "What?" Tash replied in amazement.

  Pylum laughed again. "Imagine believing all that nonsense about curses

  and legends."

  "Y-You mean you don't?" she stuttered.

  "Of course not." Pylum pushed past them and started down the stairs.

  "Follow me."

  Tash and Hoole had no choice but to follow Pylum down the steep stairway

  into the tomb below. At the bottom of the stairs, Tash could see two stone

  coffins and a large, closed door. Pylum walked up to the coffins.

  "Sycorax," he chuckled. "What a foolish story. But at least all my years

  of study finally proved useful."

  "I don't know what you're thinking, Pylum," Uncle Hoole said, "but I warn

  you that you alone are no match for me."

  Pylum grinned. "Oh, I know all about your Shi'ido powers. You could turn

  into a wampa ice beast and tear me apart right here. In fact that's why I

  arranged to have you brought down here. My associates and I consider your

  shape-changing powers a perfect test."

  Tash's brain was spinning in confusion. "Test of what?"

  Pylum smiled. "Why, a test of our undead soldiers, naturally."

  He pounded on the door. It slowly creaked open. Inside an army of zombies

  was waiting.

  CHAPTER 19

  Tash screamed.

  Hoole didn't hesitate. In the blink of an eye, he did exactly as Pylum

  predicted. He quickly shape-shifted into an enormous wampa ice beast, using

  the creature's great claws to swipe at the zombies. His blows tossed them

  aside like feathers. But after every blow, the zombies simply stood up and

  started forward again, clutching at his arms and legs.

  Tash knew she could do nothing to stop the zombies. But she thought she

  could slow them down. She found an old length of chain lying on the tomb floor

  and used it to trip the awkward zombies. It didn't slow them for long, but at

  least it kept some of them from swarming over Hoole.

  The Shi'ido shifted from a wampa to a gundark and from a gundark to a

  reptilian creature that Tash had never seen before, but nothing stopped the

  undead. They felt no pain and no fear, and they were determined to bring Hoole

  down.

  Hoole and Tash soon found themselves backed up against the wall. Zombies

  crowded into the small space around them, pressing forward. Hoole had

  transformed into a Wookiee, and shoved the zombies back with a roar, but it

  was like pushing against a brick wall. Powerful hands clutched at his Wookiee

  fur, dragging him down and smothering him.

  In a blur, Hoole transformed into a dozen different species from across

  the galaxy. But none of them were strong enough, fast enough, or slippery

  enough to escape the undead mob. Hoole returned to his Wookiee form for one

  last surge of strength, then fell to his knees with a defiant roar. A dozen

  zombies hung onto him, ensuring that he could not get up again. Hoole had lost

  the battle.

  Pylum drew a small blaster from his pouch and held it to Tash's head.

  "Now, Dr. Hoole, I suggest you return to your normal shape and stay that way

  before I do the girl serious harm."

  The Wookiee snarled but obeyed. Hoole reappeared under the pile of

  walking corpses. He looked tired but unhurt.

  Beyond the door, Tash heard the sound of someone clapping. "Excellent,

  excellent," said a malicious voice. "You see, Pylum, I told you the zombies

  were invincible. They fear nothing and they feel nothing. They are the perfect

  soldiers, and this test proves it."

  The speaker stepped through the doorway. Tash gasped, and even Hoole

  grunted in surprise. It was Dr. Evazan.

  "You're working together!" she cried.

  "Naturally," Evazan said. "I use my great scientific genius to animate

  the corpses while Pylum uses the superstitions of this backward planet to keep

  the locals away from the cemetery."

  "It was the perfect cover," Hoole said. "You used the great supply of

  bodies here for your experiments. And if anyone did see anything unusual,

  Pylum simply blamed it on the curse of Necropolis."

  "But why?" Tash asked Pylum. "You betrayed all your beliefs."

  Pylum rolled his eyes. "You are naive, aren't you? Do you know what it's

  like to be taunted a
nd mocked by teenagers like Kairn? To be called a madman

  for upholding the ancient ways? I believed those legends!" Pylum's eyes

  blazed. "When the jokes became too much to bear, I did the unthinkable. I

  broke into the Crypt of the Ancients to see the grave of Sycorax itself, to

  prove that the legends were true! But do you know what I found?" Pylum had

  worked himself into a rage. He strode over to the stone coffins and heaved one

  of them open. "This!"

  Inside the stone box lay a frail skeleton, wrapped in a tattered gray

  shroud. The skeleton was so thin, so delicate, that it looked a breath might

  snap its bones. Pylum almost snarled. "This pile of bones is the mighty

  Sycorax, the bringer of the curse that has cast a shadow over Necropolis for a

  thousand years!"

  "Puh! " Pylum spat and dropped the stone lid, which crashed back into

  place with a thunderous boom, sending up a cloud of dust. When the dust

  cleared, Tash saw that the stone lid had cracked.

  Pylum sneered. "Everything I believed in was a lie. There was no curse. I

  had become the servant of a superstition. When Evazan offered me the chance to

  make a fortune by helping him, I took it."

  "Precisely," Dr. Evazan said. "Everything went according to plan until

  that bounty hunter showed up, followed by that annoying brat."

  "Zak," Tash whispered. "You killed him."

  Evazan laughed the most evil laugh she'd ever heard. "Why, no, my dear.

  You killed him. I merely put him in a brief, deathlike coma. You buried him."

  Evazan checked his wrist chronometer. "In fact if my guess is correct, right

  now your brother is either running out of air or running out of room to hide

  from the boneworms."

  Both were true. In his coffin Zak felt the air become thick and stifling.

  But that was the least of his concerns.

  Above his head he saw the wood of his coffin bulge inward and crack. A

  fat white wriggling thing appeared, squirming as it tried to enlarge the hole

  it had made. Using his glowrod Zak poked the worm and it recoiled.

  It was a futile gesture. Boneworms were burrowing a dozen holes in his

  coffin. Confined as he was, Zak couldn't reach them all.

  He saw one of the pale, white worms drop into the coffin with him.

  Another, then another, followed. Zak felt a sickly wet slap on his cheek,

  and he felt something crawl right across his mouth. Something else tickled his

  ear.

  "Yaggh!" Zak thought he would be sick. He pulled the boneworms away from

  his head and flicked them down toward his feet, where the worms splattered

  against the coffin wall. The boneworms left a trail of slime where they had

  crawled on his skin. Zak wiped it quickly away, remembering what Evazan had

  said about the final ingredient to his reanimation serum.

  More and more boneworms plopped through the openings in the coffin. He

  couldn't stop them all. Even if he could, his lungs were burning. He was

  nearly out of oxygen. He tried to get one more lungful of air as more

  boneworms wriggled wetly across his skin.

  Boom!

  Something heavy slammed against the top of his coffin.

  Boom!

  Again the coffin shivered as though struck by a battering ram.

  Boom!

  On the third blow, the coffin lid shattered. Someone wrenched away the

  slivers of wood. Then a gloved hand reached into the coffin, grabbed Zak by

  the shirt, and hauled him out.

  It was Boba Fett.

  Zak's head was spinning from lack of oxygen. He saw Boba Fett standing

  before him, and Deevee standing beside the bounty hunter. He wondered if he

  was seeing things.

  Boba Fett shook him until his head started to clear. Then the bounty

  hunter rasped, "Where is Evazan?"

  Zak tried to speak. "Th-thanks. I thought I was gone for good."

  "You would have been, but you have information I need," the bounty hunter

  stated. "Where is Evazan?"

  "Do you know, Zak?" Deevee urged. "Time is short."

  Zak took a long breath and felt his lungs fill up at last. That helped

  his head clear. "Uh, sure. The crypt. Evazan is hiding in the Crypt of the

  Ancients. Now what..."

  Boba Fett let him go, and Zak's weakened legs gave out from under him.

  Deevee helped him back up. "Deevee, how did you know?"

  "I found Evazan's files," the droid explained. "And I convinced Boba Fett

  that you had information he needed. Can you walk?"

  "I think so."

  "Good. We must hurry."

  To Zak's surprise the droid reached down into the coffin. Zak looked down

  into the hole where he had been buried. The coffin was now full of boneworms

  wriggling and writhing over one another, searching for the body that had been

  there-his body. He shuddered.

  Deevee pulled out a handful of wriggling bone-worms. "We may need these.

  Let's go."

  Tash was too shocked to resist when Evazan's zombie servants dragged her

  and Uncle Hoole into the hidden chamber, shutting the doors behind them. They

  were shoved into one of the holding cells, now empty of the zombies that Zak

  had seen earlier. The door was slammed shut by one of the undead servants.

  Tash recognized him as Kairn. But she didn't care. She couldn't stop thinking

  about Zak.

  They had buried Zak alive.

  She could imagine nothing more horrible.

  From behind the bars of the cell, Hoole studied the undead creatures. The

  scientist in him could not help but be impressed. "Astounding. Complete

  reanimation." He looked at Evazan. "And you brought yourself back, too, no

  doubt."

  Unable to resist the urge to gloat, Evazan told Hoole the same things he

  had told Zak.

  "The new version of my serum seems to work quite well," he added, giving

  only a small twitch. "My brain functions and memory are fully intact, as are

  those of my other test subject." He pointed at Kairn, who guarded the door to

  the cell. "The serum is now ready for delivery."

  "Delivery?" Hoole asked. "To whom?"

  Evazan laughed. "Don't insult my intelligence, Doctor Hoole! I may like

  to gloat over my victims, but do you think I would reveal a secret that

  important, even to the doomed?" He scratched the blackened scars on the right

  side of his face. "My employer wouldn't look kindly on that. And I don't

  intend to be killed a second time."

  Even as Evazan spoke, the doors to his secret laboratory exploded inward.

  Everyone except the zombies ducked for cover as debris flew across the room.

  Evazan dove behind his examination table. Pylum cowered on the floor with his

  hands over his ears.

  When the smoke cleared, Boba Fett stood framed in the doorway. "Evazan. I

  do not like to repeat myself " Evazan snapped, "You won't get the chance.

  Zombies, destroy him!"

  At Evazan's command the undead creatures turned and lumbered toward Boba

  Fett. Fett moved with the calm efficiency of a trained professional, leveling

  his blaster and firing with perfect accuracy. Every shot found a mark, blowing

  the zombies backward a few meters and knocking them to the ground.

  But the zombies slowly picked themselves up and started forward again.

  Fett fired again, blasting more of
the zombies out of reach. Again the zombies

  ignored the gaping wounds in their undead bodies and charged forward.

  In the confusion of smoke and noise, Zak and Deevee slipped past Boba

  Fett and into the chamber. Since Evazan had ordered them to attack the bounty

  hunter, the zombies ignored Zak and Deevee.

  "What are we going to do?" Zak shouted over the noise of Boba Fett's

  blaster. "Boba Fett can't even stop them."

  Deevee raised his vocal volume up a level and said, "I need to get to

  Evazan's equipment. I think I can reverse the process!" He clutched the

  handful of bone-worms to his chestplate.

  The equipment-covered table was only seven meters away, but Boba Fett's

  blaster fire turned into a frantic laser storm as he fought to keep the

  zombies at bay. Stray shots flashed across the room to explode against the far

  walls, shattering many of Evazan's specimen jars and spilling their slimy

  contents on the floor. Zak and Deevee had to crawl on their hands and knees to

  avoid the blaster bolts.

  They reached the table, and Deevee immediately dropped the squirming

  boneworms into a shallow bowl. As they wriggled about, the worms left small

  slime trails along the glass. Deevee scooped drops of the disgusting liquid