A cloud of green smoke puffed out, and a terrible stench filled their noses.

  “Ugh! Rotten eggs!” Wu cried.

  “Ugh! Your armpits!” Garmadon teased, and he shut the door.

  “Very funny,” Wu said. “Now will you admit that—”

  But Garmadon had already jumped to another door. This time, nothing shot out.

  Wu couldn’t believe it. “Does it lead to a passageway?”

  “Nope,” Garmadon answered, shutting the door. “There’s just another wall behind it. A dud. It doesn’t lead anywhere.”

  GROOOAAAAAAAAAN

  A loud grinding sound filled the air, and the stone ceiling slowly began to lower toward them.

  “We’re going to be squashed like bugs!” Wu cried. “When you opened the door, it must have triggered this!”

  Garmadon looked down at his feet. “Okay, I guess you were right about these doors being dangerous,” he admitted. “So what’s your plan?”

  “What’s my plan?” Wu yelled. “You’re the one who got us into this mess.”

  “Yeah, I get it!” Garmadon shouted, and Wu heard the panic in his brother’s voice. “Um, what if we try opening some more doors?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Wu shouted back.

  The ceiling above their heads inched closer toward them. Wu took a deep breath.

  Think, Wu, he told himself. There’s got to be a trick to getting out of here…maybe some kind of marks on the doors?

  The doors were blank and smooth, but then Wu noticed something. The floor at their feet was made of stones, and each stone had a letter on it. But the letters didn’t seem to spell anything. Unless…

  “Garmadon, do you remember Father’s lessons on code-breaking?” Wu asked.

  “Sure,” Garmadon replied. “They were much less boring than his history lessons. But is this really a time to be discussing childhood memories?”

  “Those lessons are our way out of here!” Wu said. “Follow me to the start of the corridor!”

  He took off running.

  The ceiling groaned, inching closer to their heads, as Wu and Garmadon reached the start of the corridor. Wu gazed down at the floor.

  “Look, the letters don’t make sense,” he said. He read the letters aloud, going across the first row of stones. “K-X-Y-E-O-L-E-B-D-P…it’s got to be a code!”

  “Don’t you think the letters are scrambled?” Garmadon wondered.

  “They could be,” Wu guessed, as the ceiling groaned again. “But unscrambling all these letters would take too much time. I’m thinking the code might be every other letter. K-Y-O-E…”

  “That’s not it,” Garmadon said. He stared at the stones. “What about every third letter? K-E-E-P. Keep!”

  Wu nodded. “That’s got to be it! Quick! Let’s decode the rest!”

  The brothers jumped from stone to stone as they made their way down the corridor. They ducked lower and lower as they moved, saying the words out loud as they decoded them.

  “Y-O-U-R, E-Y-E-S, O-N, T-H-E, F-L-O-O-R, T-O, L-A-N-D, A-T, T-H-E, R-I-G-H-T, D-O-O-R. Keep your eyes on the floor to land at the right door! We got it!”

  By the time they landed at the last letter—R—they were on their knees, and the ceiling was just inches above their heads. Garmadon pushed the door open, and they crawled through.

  Whomp! The door thudded shut behind them. Both boys froze and waited.

  “No monsters. No screams,” Wu remarked.

  “And the ceiling isn’t trying to squash us!” Garmadon cried, springing to his feet.

  Wu jumped up, and the brothers high-fived.

  “We did it!” Wu cheered. “We make a great team!”

  “Yeah!” Garmadon agreed, but a flash of doubt clouded his brain.

  Does he really mean it? Garmadon wondered. Wu hasn’t looked at me the same ever since that dumb snake bit me. And as for being a team…he’s always trying to tell me what to do. How is that teamwork?

  Wu examined the narrow hallway. “I guess we made it into the maze,” he said. “Looks like there’s a turn down there.”

  “Might as well start trying to get back to the Sphinx,” Garmadon said, and he moved past his brother.

  “Don’t you think we need a kind of strategy?” Wu asked. “Like, leaving a breadcrumb trail or something like that?”

  “Sage and Mina’s cakes barely made a dent in my belly, and we’ve only got one hunk of bread left. I’m not wasting those crumbs in the maze,” Garmadon replied. “Anyway, that first chamber was all about surprises and dangers. The only strategy we’re going to need is Spinjitzu—follow the path, fight whatever gets in our way, and we’ll be good.”

  “Hmm,” Wu said, but he didn’t argue. He and Garmadon walked down the corridor. When they got to the turn, Wu slowly peered around the corner.

  “Coast is clear.”

  “Seriously? Are you going to do that at every turn?” Garmadon asked. “It’ll take forever to get out of this horrible place.”

  “At least we will get out, if we’re careful,” Wu countered.

  They continued through the maze. Torches on the wall lit the way, but they were few and far between, and the boys’ eyes adjusted to the dim light. Walking with ninja stealth, they barely made a sound as they traveled across the smooth stone.

  The passageway turned right, then left, then left again, then right. Then the path ended in a T, with a choice to go either left or right.

  The brothers stopped.

  “Our first choice!” Garmadon announced.

  “We need to think carefully. One way could lead to victory, and the other—certain doom,” Wu said in a serious voice.

  “Well, I’m not afraid of doom,” Garmadon said. “I mean, we’re the sons of the First Spinjitzu Master, having an adventure. You don’t really think we’ll get through this maze without a problem, do you?”

  Wu sighed. “Why can’t anything be easy for once?”

  “It’s going to be what it’s going to be, and we’ll be ready for whatever that is,” Garmadon assured him. “So it doesn’t matter which way we choose.”

  Wu nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go left!”

  They made a left turn. The hallway looked the same, with no dangers in sight. The only difference was that the stone floor had turned to sand. And as they walked, the corridor grew wider.

  “Looks like you made a good choice, brother,” Garmadon remarked. Figures Wu would get it right, he thought.

  That was when the warriors rose up from the ground, fully formed, in front of them. They looked to be entirely made of sand, wearing helmets, chest plates, and skirts. The spears they carried seemed to be made of metal—gleaming gold. Blank white eyes stared from their faces, and a mask covered each soldier’s nose and mouth. A dozen of them stood in four lines in front of the brothers, blocking their way.

  “What were you saying about a good choice?” Wu asked.

  “They’re made of sand. How hard can it be to defeat them?” Garmadon wondered. He launched into a Spinjitzu tornado and whirled toward the first line of warriors.

  “Ninjaaaaaaaa—”

  Wham! Garmadon bounced back from the soldiers and landed next to Wu.

  “They’re hard as rocks!” he cried. “How are we supposed to beat them?”

  Wu looked at him and smiled. “Together,” he said, and he spun into a Spinjitzu tornado. Garmadon did the same, and together they slammed into one of the warriors.

  The warrior tipped backward, knocking into the warrior behind him. That started a chain reaction, and two more warriors tipped over. Garmadon noticed a slight shimmer in their forms as they fell.

  BAM!

  Garmadon delivered a spinning kick to one of the warriors as he fell.

  POOF!

  The warrior dissolved into sand.

  “One down!” Garmadon yelled. “Wu, you gotta get them while they’re moving.”

  The boys spun toward another warrior, and rather than be sitting targets, the sand warriors started fighting back.

  Garmadon leaned to the side to avoid a spear thrust, and then struck the warrior as he pulled back his arm.

  POOF!

  Another warrior dissolved.

  Wu jumped over a swinging spear and landed in a somersault. He grabbed the spear from another warrior, who gave chase. Wu spun around mid-run and roundhouse-kicked the sand soldier.

  POOF!

  The two brothers whirled through the hallway, dodging spears and attacking the warriors whenever they moved. It wasn’t long before they were standing on top of a mound of sand, with golden spears scattered around them.

  “We did it!” Garmadon cheered.

  “Maybe you’re right, brother,” Wu said. “We’ll fight our way out of here in no time.”

  The two brothers jumped off the sand mound—and the floor opened up underneath their feet. They plummeted into darkness.

  “Reaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyyyyy?” they yelled.

  This time, they collided on the way down and tumbled onto a cold floor. Garmadon tried to sit up—but felt a foot push down on his chest. He looked up to see a masked figure standing over them, with a spear pressed to Wu’s throat!

  The brothers leapt into action. Wu grabbed the spear and pushed their attacker aside while Garmadon jumped to his feet, adding his strength to Wu’s move.

  Another sand warrior? Wu wondered. But this opponent moved with skilled speed, almost ninja-like. After a graceful backflip, the attacker swiftly twirled the spear and then struck each of the brothers with the dull end before they could react.

  The blow knocked both boys off their feet, but they weren’t down for long. They launched into Spinjitzu tornadoes and whirled toward the attacker, who somersaulted and tried to knock them down with the spear. The strike didn’t slow the boys, who stopped twirling, and blocked the masked figure on either side. Wu noticed distinctly human eyes behind the mask as the figure held out the spear defensively. His brother had the same thought at the same time.

  “Wu, this isn’t a sand warrior!” Garmadon called.

  Wu nodded, then addressed the masked fighter. “Hey, we’re trapped here, just like you! We’re not your enemy!”

  The attacker eyed both of them for a moment. Then they lowered the spear and took off the brown cloth that covered their head, nose, and mouth. Underneath was a long mane of black hair and the face of a young woman with dark eyes and a scar on her left cheek.

  “You got past the sand warriors?” she asked. “Nobody ever gets past the sand warriors. Nobody but me, anyway.”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t that hard,” Garmadon said with a shrug.

  The girl raised an eyebrow. “Okay, then. I’m Shezada. Sorry I attacked you, but I’ve been stuck in this pyramid for a few weeks and I’m on automatic fighting mode. Better follow me, and I’ll explain everything. This corridor isn’t safe.”

  Should we trust her? Wu wondered, but Garmadon didn’t seem to have any doubts and was already at Shezada’s heels. Wu noticed she was dressed like a desert traveler, in light-colored clothing that looked easy to move around in. Her boots had clearly carried her for many miles. And along with her spear, she had a bow and a quiver of arrows strapped to her back.

  More like a warrior than a traveler, maybe, Wu guessed.

  They all traveled through twists and turns, and then Shezada stopped. She slid aside a round, stone plate to reveal a hole underneath.

  “Down here,” she said, and she jumped down through the hole. The brothers looked at each other.

  “Down again?” asked Wu, frowning.

  “Why am I not surprised? At least we’re deciding to fall through a hole this time,” Garmadon joked. Then they jumped, one at a time.

  They landed in a room that looked like a cave, with rough ridges on the stone walls. Wu heard a tiny trickling sound and followed it to a small stream of water cascading down the rocks into a large, shallow stone. No torches lit the space, but glowing blue and green mushrooms sprouted from cracks in the rocky walls, giving the room an eerie light. Radiant white reptiles, no bigger than Wu’s hand, skittered around the cave, adding to the brightness.

  “Home, sweet home,” Shezada said, and she motioned to some small boulders. “Have a seat.”

  “So, you came here to this pyramid on purpose?” Wu asked her.

  “Sure,” Shezada replied. “I came to get a wish from the Sphinx, just like anyone else foolish enough to come here.”

  “You said you’ve been here for weeks,” Wu said, as they all sat down. “Does that mean you haven’t figured out how to get out?”

  “Not yet,” she replied. “But I’m trying. Every day I get a little closer.”

  “Have you met anyone else in here?” Garmadon asked.

  Shezada’s face clouded. “Well…not exactly. Not like you guys, anyway.”

  Wu was about to ask what she meant by that, but Garmadon interrupted with more questions.

  “How have you managed to survive here for weeks? Is there a restaurant or something? Or a gift shop?” he asked.

  “Well, I brought some supplies with me when I decided to enter the pyramid,” Shezada replied. She nodded toward a small sack on a piece of rock that served as a table. “Mostly a bunch of sesame flour cookies. They’re hard as rocks, but they don’t go bad, and they fill you up.”

  Gurrrrrgle.

  Garmadon’s mostly-empty stomach rumbled at the mention of cookies. Shezada jumped up and aimed her spear in front of her.

  “What was that?”

  “Um, nothing,” Garmadon said. “So is this, like, your home base?”

  Shezada nodded and motioned around the cave. “I lucked out when I found this place. It might not look like much, but this fresh water is keeping me alive. And those brillies are filled with protein.”

  “Brillies?” Garmadon asked.

  Shezada walked to the wall and quickly grabbed one of the glowing reptiles by the tail. “They’re easy to catch, and they taste like chicken,” she said. “Well, if the chicken lived in an algae-filled pool of muck.”

  She dropped the lizard, and it ran away. Then she nodded toward a stone bowl nestled in a pile of glowing embers. “I made a fresh pot of brillie stew this morning. Want some?”

  “No thanks,” both brothers answered at once.

  “I mean, algae-filled muck chicken sounds tempting, but…” Wu began, and Shezada grinned.

  “Wait until you’ve been here a few weeks,” she said. “You’ll change your tune.”

  “Oh, we do not plan on being here that long,” Garmadon insisted.

  “You think so, huh? That’s cute,” Shezada said. Then she shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re missing.” As she bent down to spoon some stew into a bowl, Wu saw Garmadon reach into the sack and grab one of the cookies Shezada had talked about. He thought about calling out Garmadon, but who knew how Shezada would react? She seemed like a tough cookie herself. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice one missing.

  “So, you two must be here for a wish,” she said. “What are you wishing for?”

  “Why don’t you tell us first?” Garmadon asked.

  “Because I asked first,” Shezada replied.

  Wu looked at his brother, who shrugged.

  “Well, our father sent us on this journey to find a special tea,” Wu explained. “It only grows near the Northern Ocean.”

  Shezada raised an eyebrow. “Wow, that must be some tasty tea,” she said. “The Northern Ocean is a long way off.”

  “Actually, it’s supposed to have the ability to get rid of evil, or something like that,” Wu explained, and Garmadon jabbed his brother with his elbow.

  Shezada looked from Wu to Garmadon. “Which one of you is turning evil?”

  Wu looked at the ceiling, and Garmadon looked at the floor. Shezada laughed. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

  “All right, so what’s your wish?” Wu asked.

  Shezada’s face clouded. “You know what? I should never have asked,” she answered. Then she got up and rinsed her bowl in the trickling water. Wu saw Garmadon stealthily slip the stolen cookie back into the sack.

  A brillie skittered across the wall, and Wu noticed something—chalk drawings on a smooth section. He walked over to the drawings. They looked like a giant map—a map of the maze.

  “Shezada, what’s all this?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes! I was just about to show you that,” she said and looked at the map. “You see, you need a strategy to get through this maze.”

  Wu glanced at Garmadon. “That’s exactly what I said, dear brother, isn’t it?”

  Garmadon rolled his eyes.

  “Every day I leave this room for hours and explore the maze,” she explained. “I go a little farther each day, and when I get back, I create a map so I won’t take the same path twice.”

  Wu nodded. “That’s really smart.”

  She grinned. “Thanks! I think I’m finally close to finding my way out. I’ve survived every challenge the maze has thrown at me, and I’m pretty sure I can handle any other surprises this pyramid is holding.”

  Garmadon marched up to them. “Wait a second, you said you’ve been in here for weeks?” he asked. “So how much longer do you think you will need to get out?”

  Shezada shrugged. “If my hunch is right, not much longer. But it could take a few more weeks. I just don’t know.”

  “Great. We’ll probably never get out of here,” Garmadon mumbled.

 

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