Chapter One

Toa Inika Kongu dove out of the way as a wickedly curved dagger flew overhead. Looking up, he saw the blade had buried itself in the rock, about where his head had been a moment before.

“Just once — just once! — I’d like to take a trip-walk without someone trying to kill me!” he said.

Toa Inika Jaller ran past, stopped, turned, and fired a blast of fire from his sword. He aimed over the head of his scale-skinned pursuers, hoping to scare them off. It didn’t work. It would have failed even if he had aimed to burn them down. Driven by hatred and a need for vengeance, nothing was going to stop these Zyglak.

The battle was one more nightmare in a journey that had been filled with them. The Toa Inika had come to the island of Voya Nui in search of six other heroes, the Toa Nuva, who had disappeared there. They found themselves in a battle with villains who had seized control of the island and were seeking the powerful Kanohi Mask of Life which was hidden there.

In the end, the Inika had won the fight, found the mask, and the Toa Nuva had been rescued. But a last blow struck by their enemies cost them their grip on the mask, and it plunged beneath the ocean waves. Their only hope of retrieving it was to journey through a labyrinth of stone tunnels that extended from Voya Nui down to the ocean depths. Once there, they would have to find some way to locate the mask and get it back, not easy when some of them were poor swimmers and none could breathe underwater.

Of course, first they had to get there. As they moved through the twisted and narrow tunnels, the Toa quickly discovered they weren’t alone. The labyrinth was home to a race of warriors with a murderous grudge against Toa, Matoran, and anyone else associated with the Great Spirit Mata Nui. The running battle that followed had been violent and frightening, and had revealed things about the Toa themselves that they might have preferred not to face.

Right now, though, the Toa were just hoping to still have all their parts intact when this was over. More Zyglak were emerging from every side tunnel, their knives and spears flying through the air like angry swamp hornets. Worse, everything their blades struck was instantly destroyed.

“I hear water up ahead!” Toa Inika Hahli shouted. She was barely able to keep moving, having been wounded badly in an earlier battle.

The six Toa Inika rounded a bend in the tunnel and then stopped dead. There was a large gap in the stone wall, through which ocean water flooded in. The passages up ahead were already underwater.

“Anybody have a Toa canister in their pack?” asked Toa Inika Hewkii. “I didn’t think so. We might have stronger lungs than most, but that’s a lot of water out there.”

A hail of spears clattered against the stone wall just behind the Toa, eating holes in the rock. “And that’s a lot of Zyglak back there,” said Toa Inika Nuparu. “Looks like the last one in the pool is skewered meat.”

A violent tremor suddenly shook the tunnels. Cracks appeared in the walls, and fragments of stone fell from the ceiling. It seemed as if something was trying to crush the entire labyrinth from the outside, and doing a great job of it, too.

The Zyglak looked around frantically as their world threatened to collapse. For the moment, the Toa were forgotten.

“Let’s move!” said Jaller. “We’ll take our chances in the ocean.”

“Hold on,” said Hewkii. “I like a challenge as much as the next Toa, but — Toa of Stone, remember? Even with a few lessons in my Matoran days, I still swim like a stone.”

The tunnels shook again, worse this time, as if they were being wrenched from side to side. Now the Zyglak were fleeing in sheer terror.

“Whatever’s out there can’t be worse than what’s in here,” Jaller replied. “I’ll light up my swords — if they burn hot enough, they’ll stay lit underwater. Follow my light— maybe we can find an air pocket.”

Jaller took a deep breath and dove through the gap in the wall. The other Toa Inika followed. Hahli sensed immediately something was not right about the water. It wasn’t the kind found around the island of Mata Nui, or the smooth liquid protodermis that surrounded the island of Metru Nui. Water, by its nature, was a force of life and healing — but this liquid felt foul and destructive, like it had somehow been corrupted.

There wasn’t time to puzzle it out now. Jaller’s burning swords had revealed the source of the tremors in the tunnels: a massive undersea creature wrapped around the stone cord that led from Voya Nui down here. It was trying to crush the cord, and the tunnels inside it, in its coils. Then its huge, serpentine head looked in the Toa’s direction. It had spotted Jaller’s flames.

Light! The creature knew that light meant living things, and living things meant a meal. It uncoiled its 300-foot-long body from the cord and started for the source of the illumination.

Jaller and the other Toa saw the monster’s shadowy form heading for them. They braced for an attack, knowing the battle would probably use up the air in their lungs and doom them. But the huge serpent was not going to give them any choice in the matter.

Then the world went white. Blindingly, overwhelmingly white, a blazing illumination that seared the eyes and tore at the mind and body. The Toa screamed from shock and pain, even though it meant water would fill their straining lungs. The creature above them reeled as waves of energy ripped through the water.

In the midst of the agony, the Toa heard a voice. It wasn’t speaking words so much as conveying a primal emotion, but somehow they all knew who was “speaking.” It was the Kanohi Mask of Life, the artifact they sought, and it was calling for help.

We can’t even help ourselves, thought Jaller, as he doubled over in pain. If the mask is doing this to us… why? Why would it ask for our help and attack us at the same time?

Then — as suddenly as it had begun — it was over.

The light was gone, along with the waves of energy. The incredible pain had ceased. The Toa floated in the water, still and quiet. Any sea predator who had approached just then would have kept on going, for there would be no sport in hunting the dead.

“We’re… alive?” muttered Kalmah. “What an… unexpected surprise.”

The tentacled being rose unsteadily to his feet. In his lifetime, Kalmah had been a conqueror, a ruler, and a prisoner. Most recently, his existence had been spent as a monstrous resident of the ocean’s depths. Never before had he experienced anything like what had just happened.

Even now, it was hard to recall the events and still keep his fragile hold on sanity. He and his fellow warlords, the Barraki, had journeyed to a network of undersea caverns in search of the fabled Mask of Life. They had found it, all right, along with a venom eel mysteriously grown to 300 feet in length and a Matoran determined to smash the mask of pieces. The eel found better things to do and left, and the Barraki managed to stop the Matoran from carrying out his mission. But the second a Barraki laid hands on the mask, there was an explosion of light and energy that seared both eyes and minds.

How much time had passed since then, Kalmah did not know. He got to his feet, wrapping a tentacle around a rock to steady himself, and looked around. Two of his allies, Carapar and Mantax, were half-buried in the sand — no doubt they had crawled there, trying to get relief from the intense light. A third, Ehlek, was flat against a rock wall, babbling like a lunatic. But Pridak — where was Pridak?

The self-proclaimed leader of the Barraki, sharklike Pridak had been the one to grab the Mask of Life. It was right after he had proclaimed that he intended to use the mask against all of the Barraki’s enemies that the blinding light had appeared all around. If that light came from the mask, then Pridak would have been the one closest to it. Kalmah had no great love for Pridak — he had, after all, lost an eye to “the Shark” long ago — but if anything had happened to him, it might have happened to the mask as well.

And we need that mask, he reminded himself. With it, we can shed these freakish forms, breathe air once more, and escape this undersea Pit. Then we can be again what we once were: absolute rulers of vast empires, masters of every land we walk upon.

The small tentacles on the back of Kalmah’s head detected sudden movement. He whirled in the water to see the Po-Matoran, the one who had tried to break the mask, swimming frantically away. For a moment, Kalmah considered grabbing the Matoran and squeezing until something cracked. Then he decided against it. After all, where could the little one go — back to his home city, Mahri Nui? There was no safety to be had there.

Kalmah probed the cave with his tentacle. When nothing grabbed, bit, or burned the limb, he felt it was safe to go in. It didn’t take long to find Pridak. The stark white Barraki was stretched out on the ground, a mask gripped fiercely in his claws. Kalmah could see a large crack running from the top edge of the mask all the way down one side.

“You’re going to shatter it,” he said, reaching down to pry the mask out of Pridak’s hands.

Pridak flashed his sharp jaws and lashed out at Kalmah, landing a kick that would have pulverized a lesser being. “Stay away! It’s mine!” he raged.

Kalmah backed away slowly. He could see the madness in Pridak’s eyes. If someone didn’t calm the white Barraki soon, the mask would wind up in pieces, along with all their hopes of escape.

Where’s Takadox and his hypnotic gaze when I need him? Kalmah thought. There’s nothing wrong with Pridak that a good will-sapping wouldn’t cure.

On the other side of the undersea mountain, Takadox was just waking up. His memory of just how he had wound up lying in a trench on the seafloor was jumbled. But one glance upward took care of that.

Ah, yes, he said to himself. The beast…

Takadox had spotted the massive venom eel and thought to use his hypnotic powers to bring it under his control. The eel had other ideas, slamming into the Barraki and sending him tumbling down into the depths. It was sheer luck Takadox had not wound up a shattered pile of parts.

“This is what I get for leaving my comfortable cave and trying to do my own dirty work,” he said to himself. “Next time, I will trance Carapar and he can play tag with that overgrown worm.”

Takadox shook his head and glanced up. Six forms were floating in the water far above him. At first, they were so still he thought they must be dead. Then fire flashed from the hand of one of them. Takadox knew then who they had to be, and braced for an attack, thinking they might have seen him.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to be concerned. The six figures had not noticed the Barraki down below. No, they had been noticed themselves, by the huge creature that had felled Takadox moments before.

For the moment, Takadox forgot his mysterious quarry. He settled himself on a flat rock to watch six Toa get eaten by a venom eel the size of a small mountain.

Oh, this is going to be good, he thought. Too bad there are no Matoran nearby — after all, what good is a show without snacks?

Dekar wasn’t ready to die.

He was swimming as quickly as he could for Mahri Nui, but knew he wasn’t going to make it. The air bubble that surrounded him was a split second away from disappearing completely. He could hold his breath, but not long enough to reach another source of air. He was going to perish here, in the black waters beneath his village, with the knowledge that he might have doomed his friends.

The Mask of Life had fallen into his hands, although he had not known then what it was. Just having it in his possession warped his existence, as he found himself unable to kill anything — even creatures threatening Mahri Nui. Every time he made a strike, the wound would heal instantly. Blaming the mask and believing it to be evil, he decided to destroy it. He took it to a sea cave and tried to smash it with a rock.

After that, things got a little unclear. He remembered a flash of energy and the appearance of a monstrous venom eel. Then five mysterious and dangerous beings calling themselves Barraki arrived, insisting he turn over the mask. When he refused, they attacked him and took it. There was an explosion of pure light, and the next thing he knew, the Barraki were scattered and he could escape.

Now it seemed certain the escape would fail. He would drown, his body slowly sinking to the ocean floor, and no one on Mahri Nui would know the danger they were in. The air bubble was completely gone now, only the breath in his lungs sustained him, and already he felt strange. The world around him kept blinking in and out of existence. One moment, he was swimming for his life. The next, he was taller, more powerful, standing guard over imprisoned Barraki and other evil beings. Then reality returned and he was still so far from Mahri Nui and so close to the end.

Everything went dark… then painfully bright… then black again. Is this what death feels like? Dekar wondered. A name began to echo through his mind, one he had never heard before. Hydraxon… Hydraxon…

In the space of a heartlight’s flash, he was dying… then already dead… and then reborn, full of life and strength. The crisis had passed. Now he knew he would not perish today.

But he was no longer Dekar. He was a black-armored being of power, a spirit of justice and vengeance, and his duty was clear. The Pit was a jail, all who lived there were prisoners, and he was here to slam the cell door shut.

Grimly, he turned toward Mahri Nui and began his journey again.