A moment later, there was a loudpop!as Mini and Rudy appeared beside Aru. Mini was wearing the same clothes as before and she still looked a little sad, but she flashed a smile when she saw Aru and Brynne.That didn’t take too long, Mini said through the mind link.How’d it go?
Aru was about to respond when Rudy groaned. He was draped in a cloud robe and wearing a face mask. “I wasrightin the middle of a meditation session.” Two cucumber slices peeled off his eyelids and hit the floor. “HORSE!” he yelled, jumping back.
“EW!” said Tumburu, cringing before he looked at Menaka. “My dear, what in the world is this? Why are you accosting me with”—he wiggled his fingers at them—“lower life-forms?”
“Calm down. We’re just teenagers,” said Aiden flatly.
“I stand by my choice of words.”
Touché, thought Aru.
“Tumburu,” said Menaka, pointing to Aiden. “Thisis my grandson. And these young ladies…are the Pandavas.”
“Don’t mind me,” muttered Rudy. “I’m just a prince among peasants.”
“They need a blessing of celestial musical talent,” said Menaka, talking over Rudy. “And I have sanctioned it.”
“A musical blessing?” repeated Tumburu. “Whatever for?”
Behind Tumburu, the now-muted televisions showed auditions for the Final Stage. A group of naginis in matching outfits and glittery eye makeup hissed and flared their cobra hoods at the indifferent judges before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. Tumburu followed Aru’s line of sight. He turned his head, looking at the monitors and then back at the Potatoes.
“You’re joking.”
Brynne’s lip curled. “Yeah, we’re trying to prevent the end-of-the-world war. Hilarious.”
“But what doesthatabomination of entertainment have to do with war?” asked Tumburu, watching the screens.
Just then, the cameras panned out from the auditions, revealing the crystalline Final Stage and the violet portal hanging above it. The portal that was all that stood between the Pandavas and any hope for a future. Aru’s heart sank. Maybe the Sleeper and Kara had already gotten hold of the nectar of immortality. Maybe this whole thing was a waste of time.
Understanding flickered in Tumburu’s eyes. “You wish to enter the labyrinth and make it a last battlefield,” he said in quiet awe. “But surely you can just go there directly? Aren’t there buzzing, deadly whatnoticals you might avail yourselves of?”
“You mean our godly weapons?” asked Brynne, touching her choker.
Gogo gave off a faint and, Aru thought, offended glow.
“Sure,” said Tumburu. “We of the heavens rarely bother to concern ourselves with human affairs. Though I have to admit thatthis”—he paused to look at the screens, which were now showing a pair of jugglers being forced off the audition platform with flamethrowers—“is concerning on many levels. First and foremost, do they really believe that, if the world is ending, a person wants to watch professionalclownsbefore he shuffles off this mortal coil?”
Menaka coughed loudly.
“And secondly,” said Tumburu, removing his glasses to clean them with his scarf, “I’m simply not ready to bid farewell to existence. There’s far too much music still to experience. Too many rhythms begging to exist! Too much inspiration that I must guide into the universe!”
As he said this, he raised his arms dramatically in the air. Then he brandished his eyeglasses at them. “So, what’s the meaning of this?” asked Tumburu. “Why can’t you simply…flee to the labyrinth? As I understand it, the maze will certainly allow entrance to those with a godly mark of approval.”
Beside Aru, Mini looked crestfallen. Aru knew her sister was thinking about how they should’ve already been inside it by now…but it wasn’t only her fault. Aru felt the burden of guilt, too. All the wrong choices she’d made reflected back at her like a poisonous mirror. There were a thousand things she should’ve done differently.
“Our weapons were destroyed,” said Brynne before touching her wind mace. “Well, most of them.”
Tumburu gasped. “And so you find yourself cursed and forlorn? Cast out of all that was familiar?”
Aru’s ears turned hot. “This isn’t some kind of joke, okay?”
“Oh, my dear, I amnotjoking!” said Tumburu. “Trust me, I’vebeenthere. It was awful.”
He swept a hand in front of the televisions behind him, whickering sadly. Behind him, a creature took shape on the screens. It was huge—the size of ten oaks stacked atop one another. Its flesh was the color of expired yogurt, and yellow fangs curled out from underneath its flared nostrils. A mane of neon-orange hair fell down its back and arms, and it wore a loincloth of jaguar pelt.
“I mean,look at me,” said Tumburu. “Look at what I wasforcedto wear!”
“Wait a minute….That’s you?” asked Rudy.
