“Okay, definitely not drinking it.”
“It’s the same poison that was released when the gods churned the Ocean of Milk. It will kill us. Please tell me you read the sign.” She pointed to a poster off to the side.
Aru skimmed it briefly. Once she read LIKELIHOOD OF DISMEMBERMENT, she stopped.
“Nope.”
“According to the warnings, if you touch the cauldron, the whole thing will explode,” said Mini. “It happens once a year, kinda like a volcano, which is why this place is blocked off. We’d both die.”
Then Aru had an idea. “Maybe I can call in a favor.”
She told Mini about the cage full of godly mounts. When she was finished, Mini looked impressed and even a little envious.
“A seven-headed horse?” she asked. “Can you imagine all of its neural pathways? That would be fascinating to study!”
“Focus, Mini!”
“Okay, okay. Well, you can’t even call in that favor. The rules specify that no animals may drain the poison. Apparently, it can turn them into huge monsters that eat everything around them.”
“Ughhhhh.”
“Details, details,” said Mini, chewing her pencil. “There’s gotta be a trick to this.”
“What about creating an illusion with your mirror?” asked Aru.
“Not possible.”
Mini drew out the compact. It shimmered, but it wouldn’t conjure anything. And Aru’s Ping-Pong ball didn’t offer any clues, either. It wasn’t even glowing.
“It’s like a magical dead zone,” said Mini. “I don’t even think our gifts from the Seasons will work. I couldn’t get the bakery box from Spring to open, and the only stuff around here is rocks and the big ole fire.”
Huh?
Mini pointed upward and Aru’s mouth fell open. A giant chandelier of fire hung from the ceiling. The flames twisted, and embers sparked but didn’t fall to the ground. It looked weirdly shiny, as if the whole thing were encased in glass like a chemistry vial full of blue and gold flames.
“I feel like the fire and the poison are connected somehow,” said Mini, chewing on the pencil. “If we touch either of them, they’ll explode. But at least nothing will get past the entrance.”
“Wait. If the fire and poison can’t get out of this room, why has the entire tourism office been evacuated?”
“The smell. Also, they have designated vacation days. At least, that’s what the sign says,” said Mini. “This is the weirdest tourist spot.”
Aru shrugged. Considering that the last place her class went to on a field trip was a museum of lunch boxes, a poison volcano sounded way cooler. And the Otherworld apparently thought so, too. A brightly painted wooden panel stood next to the cauldron, awaiting the next photo op. Visitors could stick their faces through a cutout hole (allowances had been made for horns, cobra hoods, and multiple heads) and pretend they’d drunk the poison. On the bottom there was a bucket for donations along with a small sign: THANKS FOR SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL HAUNTING!
Aru circled the cauldron. “So…short of trying to drink this thing and definitely dying, there’s no way?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said we can’t approach it like anyone who’s had any experience with magic. A magical person would try to trick their way into emptying the cauldron.”
Mini’s gaze had turned intense. She looked at the cauldron, then back at her notebook, then back at the cauldron. “It’s a liquid.”
Aru thought it would be uncharitable to say DUH, so she just nodded.
“If you heat liquid, it can turn into a gas. Some of the poisonous liquid in the caldron has become the poisonous vapors that are holding the liquid.”
Aru’s head hurt. Was this really the time and place for a chemistry lesson?
“That’s the trick,” said Mini, talking to herself. “They don’t want us to think with magic. We’ve got to think about it like any ordinary person would….I’ve got a plan.”
Mini seemed so shocked by the idea that she could have a plan that it ended up sounding more like I’ve got a plan?
“Awesome!” said Aru. “What’s it involve?”
“We’ve got to break it,” she said, her whole face brightening. “And not with magic.”
“Wait. Say what now?”
Mini reached for a small pebble on the ground.
“Um, Mini…?”
And then she hurled it straight at the gigantic cauldron full of poison, hollering, “For science!!!”
Welp, She Did It
If Aru had been politely indifferent to science before, now she straight up hated it. She watched as the pebble soared from Mini’s hand. It was a valiant throw. Nice arc. Very dramatic.
But the pebble fell short and dropped about a hairbreadth away from the cauldron. Aru breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe.
But then the infernal pebble did what pebbles can’t help but do:
It rolled.
Then tapped the cauldron.
“Maybe that wasn’t too strong of a—” Aru stopped as the cauldron began to quiver more violently. Its vapor sides began to swirl. “Nope. I take it back. We’re dead.”
“We’re not dead,” said Mini. “I just wanted to stir up the liquid a little. We’ve got to hit the fire next.”
“Spewing poison isn’t enough for you?” demanded Aru. “You have to add fire to it?”
“The way this room has been designed, the heat from the fire above has turned some of the poison liquid into a gas,” reasoned Mini. “If we bring down all of the fire, it should vaporize all of the poison and leave behind only the third key!”
The vapor shell of the cauldron began to split. The cave ceiling trembled, and bits of black rock flaked down. The chandelier of fire swung back and forth.
“Gather as many rocks as you can and start throwing them at the fire,” said Mini.
“What if they hit the cauldron by mistake? We’ll—”
“You said you believed in me!” shouted Mini. “So believe me!”
Aru clenched her jaw. “All right,” she said.
She gathered up rocks, and together the two of them started pelting the fire. A cracking sound rolled through the cave. Aru looked up—her guess had been right! The fire had been encased in something. And whatever it was that had been protecting them from the flames was beginning to break.
Fire tumbled down in long, flaming ribbons. In a moment, it would meet the poisonous vapor and liquid of the cauldron.
“Run!” shouted Mini. “To the entrance!”
Aru ran just as blue plumes of poison spiraled into the air. She gagged. The smell was awful. Her toe had barely crossed the threshold when she heard a boom behind her. The cauldron exploded. Out of the corner of her eye, Aru saw a giant wave of rising poison liquid.
A burst of heat and light threw her and Mini onto their backs. Aru blinked and looked up to see a wall of flames towering above them, blocking the cave entrance. The wave hit the threshold of the entrance…and stopped. Aru heard sizzling and steaming. But the poison had disappeared! The magical flames had formed some kind of fence, and must’ve cooked up all the liquid.
Mini walked to her side, out of breath, but her face shining. “See? Enough heat, and time, will turn a liquid into a gas.”
“That was incredible,” said Aru. “How’d you think of that?”
Mini just beamed.
Aru couldn’t help recalling what Lord Hanuman had said before they’d left the Court of the Sky. About how sometimes you needed someone to remind you of how powerful you were—then you would surprise even yourself.
All the flames in the room had burned out. Mini tiptoed carefully toward the center of the cave. Where the cauldron had been, there was a scorch mark on the ground. A tiny bit of the poison had found shelter from the fire in a new place: the statue of Shiva who had once crouched openmouthed behind it. Now his throat glowed bright blue.
Also on the ground stood a small turquoise goblet. Aru wondered whether that was the shoelike thing that had been floating in the cauldron. A silver liquid filled the cup. Mini picked it up gingerly.
“The third key,” she said. “A sip of old age.”