What they’d witnessed was emblazoned in their minds. Far above them towered the frightening figure of the yeti. It stood thirty feet tall or more, leaning out over the track—the embodiment of evil: monstrous and otherworldly.
At the yeti’s feet stood a tall figure in a black robe. They were too far away to see the purple fringe on the cape or the green skin, but no one in the group doubted it was she. Hidden by an outcropping of rock, they continued higher until the steady chanting of her voice could be heard. She was conjuring a spell. As the staircase curved, following the rocks, they were forced to drop to their stomachs and belly-crawl up the metal stairs. Then Finn raised a hand signaling the others to stop.
He didn’t know exactly why they’d come here—only that they couldn’t turn away from Jez’s daydream. Perhaps they were here to witness whatever Maleficent planned, perhaps to stop it. He believed their attendance here critical to Wayne’s rescue, yet he knew they were no match for the yeti. Not if Maleficant awakened the thing.
And then it became perfectly clear to him: they had to stop her from awakening the yeti in the first place. Chernabog must not come to power. This was the secret to preserving the peace in the Animal Kingdom. This was why Jez had dreamed it in the first place.
More than anything, Finn’s concern for Wayne remained at the forefront of his thoughts. He had to find out what had happened to him, where he’d gone. And to that end, he must not be afraid.
This became his focus: he must not be afraid. He felt a tingling sensation wash over him.
It was true: he did not see the green skin or the fringe on Maleficent’s robe, and he was betting she couldn’t make out the sudden slight shimmer to his skin, either.
He rose to his feet and called out boldly, “Do you really think you’ll get away with it?” His electronically-edged voice echoed in the cavernous building.
Amanda and Jez slunk back and down, once again hiding in the lee of the rock outcropping.
Far below—miles it seemed—a loud pop was heard, followed by sudden humming. The round rail to the left of the stairs carried a slight tremor.
The roller coaster had been switched on.
64
IT ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY: his words echoing around the building; the steady increase in electronic and mechanical sounds as the roller coaster started up; Maleficent’s arms shooting up from her sides and lifting her robe like magnificent wings.
The twitching of the yeti’s fingers, like the paws of a sleeping dog.
Too late! She had already awakened the giant.
His massive head moved side-to-side, and a loud crack thundered through the snowcapped mountains.
The hum and whir of the roller coaster grew steadily closer.
“Silly, silly, boy!” Maleficent spun around and shot a ball of fire at Finn. The size of a soccer ball, it exploded at his feet, flaming out.
And whereas once Finn would have been terrified by such things, would have stood transfixed by the power she displayed, something had come over him. She was nothing but an illusionist, a magician using her substantial skills to scare him. He was no longer convinced she even possessed the ability to kill him—or, if she did, then why hadn’t she done so?
“If you were going to kill me,” he shouted, “then you would have done that the first time we met. But you can’t, can you? Walt Disney would never allow a creation of his imagination to take a life.”
The tingling grew stronger; he felt it in a way, a degree, he’d never experienced. This confrontation was making his DHI stronger.
“But I am not of his imagination,” Maleficent said. “I am of the old stories—tales that existed for hundreds of years in places all around the world. Tales of things that actually happened.” She shot another ball at him. Again, he did not move from his spot. Again, the flames fell short.
The giant yeti was awake now, towering over them all, eyes blinking. Finn did not recoil. He could not picture Wayne and the other Imagineers building creatures designed to harm them.
The roller coaster sped closer.
“I will kill you,” Maleficent said, “when you are no longer of use to me.” She bent backward and looked up at the hairy creature above her. “When Lord Chernabog has no further use for you.” She let out a laugh—a bloodcurdling cackle—that for the first time challenged Finn’s DHI status. His feet and hands grew cold, and it took all his will to overcome this poison and return to his full DHI.
The beast had the reaction time of a snake. One moment Finn was standing on the stairs. The next, the yeti had him by the legs and was swinging him overhead.
His legs…not the legs of his DHI. Amanda and Jez jumped out from their hiding places and Jez shouted, “Let him go!”
“Ah!” Maleficent cried out. “If it isn’t the Fairlies.”
Amanda craned forward, her neck thrust out. Maleficent knew way too much.
Finn knew the secret to his own survival was to push away his fear, but being swung at thirty miles an hour over the head of a forty-foot-tall giant proved a difficult challenge.
Maleficent suddenly floated—levitated—off the platform, clearly, nothing she’d planned for herself, for she flailed her legs and arms, dog paddling like a kid struggling to swim for the first time.
“You put me down, child!” she roared.
She hurled a ball of flame at Amanda, who leaned slightly left, allowing the asteroid to pass. It exploded into the Himalayas.
“PUT HIM DOWN!” cried out Amanda, “OR I WILL DROP YOU AS YOU WISH!”
Maleficent moved like a puppet twenty feet to the left. Now there was nothing but a sixty-foot fall to concrete beneath her.
Finn felt the tingling return, and, as it did, the yeti’s hand closed shut through his body—nothing but light. Finn clamored up the beast’s arm toward its massive head. The yeti swiped at him, but again his hand passed through Finn’s DHI, unable to touch him.
He caught a glimpse of Maleficent as she began to transform into a crow. But as she did, Amanda released her and the green-skinned creature fell fifteen feet straight down before stopping in midair.
“You try that again,” Amanda warned, and I’ll drop you before you have the chance.
Maleficent looked down and seemed to consider her odds. Then she looked back at Amanda.
“You harm me, you little tart, and your friend will never see his precious Wayne again!”
With the mention of Wayne, Finn slipped. He fell off the yeti’s shoulder, and the sensation immediately removed his DHI. He slid down the side of the creature, grasping at the matted gray hair and somehow controlling his fall. As he reached the yeti’s leg, it moved. Then the other. The giant’s feet broke free of the platform where it had stood for several years. The entire building shook.
A series of screams was followed by the roller coaster shooting up at them through the darkness. Philby, Maybeck, and Willa zoomed past—backward—and out of sight.
Maybeck waved at Maleficent.
The witch proclaimed: “You will bring me the Stonecutter’s Quill, or you will never see the white-haired man again.”
At that moment, the yeti began to change. The hair was sucked inside its arms, turning the gray skin smooth; the legs and arms shrank, and the neck grew thinner, while the head also lost its hair and sprouted horns. The giant creature had been reduced to a figure much greater than Maleficent, but no longer a thirty-foot-high beast. Horns sprouted, while black webbing formed under the thing’s arms like…bat wings.
Chernabog.
Finn heard the roller coaster slowing in the distance. It would be returning—and when it did, he, Amanda, and Jez needed to be on it.
The pen, Finn realized. The Stonecutter’s Quill was the pen Walt had used to imagine the first plans of the Parks. It had demonstrated great powers the one and only time Finn had seen it used. Powers, he assumed, that could be put to evil use as easily as they had been to good.