The Serpents of Arakesh (21 page)

I rose cautiously to my feet and edged closer. Tiger Lily growled deep in her throat, but she didn't move away. The little bird let out one desperate, strangled ‘
Chip,
' and was silent again.

I bent down, slowly, slowly … and made a lightning grab at the scruff of Tiger Lily's neck. The growl increased in volume. Gently, I put one hand under her chin, inserted my fingers into her mouth behind the bird, and gave a
gentle squeeze. Her mouth opened like a dream. I took the bird in my hand, gave Tiger Lily an apologetic stroke, and turned back to the others. Tiger Lily glared at me and stalked away in a huff.

The bird was tiny, about the size of a chicken egg. Its plumage was brilliant green and peacock blue, with a scarlet head and an orange beak. The beak was slightly open, almost as if it was panting, and its bright eyes were half-closed in shock. I could feel its heart hammering in the palm of my hand.

And then I heard a rustle — the softest rustle, but one which chilled my blood — in the undergrowth next to the path.

The serpent that slid out of the undergrowth beside the path was very different from the silver-grey Serpents of Healing. It was fatter and its body had an obscene, squashed-looking flatness. Its skin was a patchwork of mustard and sludge and black, in a geometric pattern running down its back to its tail, as if it had been run over by a tractor and the tread marks had been left imprinted on its skin. The silver serpents had been strangely beautiful. This one looked gross — and evil.

It looked up at the bird in my hand. A forked tongue emerged from its slit of a mouth and flickered, tasting the air.

‘So that's it,' Kenta murmured beside me. ‘The birds are bait for the serpents. They come …' she shuddered. ‘They come to be fed.'

I sensed a movement out of the corner of my eye. I didn't want to take my eyes off the serpent, though I was wondering how on earth I was going to juggle the forked
stick, the beaker and the bird, with only two hands.

It was Jamie. He had the staff in one hand, the beaker in the other, and a look of grim resolve on his face. When he spoke, it was in a voice slightly higher than usual. ‘You did the last one, Adam. It's my turn.'

We watched in silence as Jamie placed the beaker down within easy reach, moved round behind the serpent, and quickly and efficiently pinned its head to the ground. All on his own he lifted its saggy weight in his chubby, trembling hands; all on his own he guided its head to the beaker and milked it dry.

There was a strange new look in his eyes as he placed the serpent gently down among the leaves, straightened up again, and looked over at me. ‘I guess we should give it the bird now,' he said matter-of-factly, ‘but somehow I'd rather not. Let it go.'

I opened my hand. The tiny bird lay there on its side for a moment, as if it couldn't believe it was free. Then it gave a little flutter, and was gone.

Carefully, we poured the Potion of Inner Voices into a crystal phial, and Jamie tucked it safely into his pocket.

Then we headed up the staircase, with Tiger Lily padding along behind.

This time the stairway was different. There was no suggestion of daylight at the end, as there had been before. And at the halfway landing, there was a choice of two flights, both leading upwards.

One headed back on itself, just as the previous flight had done, but there seemed to be no doorway at the top. ‘It looks like there's just another landing, and the stairs go right on up,' said Rich, squinting up into the gloom. ‘But why?'

The other flight branched off to the left, heading inward and upwards towards what must be the centre of the room above. This was the flight we took, by silent consent.

As I'd guessed it would, the staircase came out of the floor of the room above, close to the central pillar. This chamber was noticeably smaller than the garden had been. A greyish gleam shone dimly from the ceiling far above, and it was so dark it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust.

When they did, the first thing I saw was Richard's face, looming out of the gloom. It wore a baffled frown. ‘Why the entry through the floor? And where's the shelf with the stuff on it?'

‘And most of all,' whispered Gen, ‘where's the …
you know
. It must be here somewhere. I hate not knowing … I hate the feeling it might jump out at me, or drop onto me, or crawl up my leg …' I could hear she was close to tears. Reaching out, I put my arm round her and pulled her close.

She was right: there was no sign of a serpent anywhere. The floor was smooth, dark and completely bare. The walls, too, were dark. Still with my arm round Gen, I moved over and touched them. They weren't stone: instead, they had a kind of yielding, padded softness, cool and pleasant to the touch. The padding was in concentric rings, narrower near the bottom and almost two metres wide at eye level, stretching up into the darkness as high as I could see.
‘Power rings the walls of iron with silk,
' breathed Kenta. ‘And feel how satiny it is! But something about it makes me feel uncomfortable. It's like a padded cell — and you can't help asking yourself,
why?
'

‘
I
can't help asking myself,
where?
' said Gen, with a glimmer of reluctant humour. ‘And Tiger Lily doesn't like it, either!'

Tiger Lily was standing on the top step, her tail puffed
out and her eyes very wide and dark. I held out my hand to her, but she wouldn't come in.

‘Come on, guys — you're psyching yourselves out,' said Rich heartily. But his voice, which had echoed so reassuringly in the hollow stairway, sounded small and muffled in the padded room. ‘How about we have a look at the parchment, figure out the clue, and head on up.'

Kenta unrolled the parchment, and shone her torch onto it. Silently, we read the words revealed in the narrow beam.

VAST NOTICE

VAST NOTICE

‘Well, nothing springs to mind,' Jamie admitted after a moment.

Gen leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes, deep in thought. ‘Vast notice,' she murmured. ‘Vast notice. If there's a vast notice somewhere, how come it isn't staring us in the face?'

‘And not just one vast notice, but two,' Kenta murmured.
Two
vast notices … but where?'

Richard had disappeared into the gloom on the other side of the pillar. His voice came faintly back. ‘There's something here,' he called. ‘It's a drum.'

Hidden from view behind the pillar was a cylindrical drum as high as my waist, with a taut skin stretched across the top. Tucked in behind it was a rack of phials, but there was no beaker. ‘Maybe we have to bang the drum or something,' suggested Rich, ‘to call the snake.'

‘Hmmm,' goes Jamie thoughtfully. ‘How does that fit in with the clue, though?
Vast notice
— hard to see how that could possibly mean
give the drum a good whack.
'

‘What
I
want to know is, why does it say it twice?' persisted Kenta. ‘None of the other clues were repeated.'

Richard had taken the torch, and was walking round
the walls, shining the light on them. ‘We're sure about the meaning of vast, aren't we? It does mean big, not small?'

‘Vast notice, vast notice, vast, vast, notice, notice,' Kenta was muttering. ‘Come on, Gen, help me think!
Two
vast notices!
Two
vasts,
two
notices!'

Rich was back in the centre of the room, a scowl of frustration on his face. ‘Well, I'm going to bang the drum, and see what happens.'

He crouched down and beat an experimental tattoo. It was surprisingly loud, and the sound had a savage quality in the darkness. I realised one of the things worrying me about the room was its peculiar smell — a faintly fetid, musky odour that was making me feel slightly sick. I wondered if that was what was bothering Tiger Lily.

And then everything happened at once.

Kenta yelped, ‘Two vast, two notice! Too vast to notice,
too vast to notice!'

The wall Gen was leaning against shifted and slithered.

A massive head lowered itself out of the darkness and swung above us, eyes burning like coals in the blackness.

And Gen slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

The reason there was no doorway in the wall was suddenly, horrifyingly clear. And the true meaning of the poem was so obvious I couldn't believe we hadn't understood it right away.

All this raced through my mind as I stared up at the giant serpent, the blood hammering in my ears. Before I realised what he was doing Richard had seized the drum and was staggering with it towards the serpent's head.

‘Rich — don't!' Jamie yelled.

‘Someone has to,' Richard grunted. ‘I'm the only one who'll be strong enough to hang onto it when —'

The serpent's head hurtled out of the gloom like a thunderbolt. Its muzzle hit the skin of the drumhead with a crack like a pistol-shot. Richard reeled and almost fell, staggering under the colossal weight. The venom squirted into the drum with the sound of ripping silk.

The serpent wrenched its fangs free, throwing Rich across the room to bounce off the walls padded by the serpent's own coils. Its head swung up and away into the grey light near the ceiling: a nightmare retreating into the dawn. The entire room seemed to slither and shift as the giant settled itself for slumber once again.

It was over.

And Richard, ashen faced, lowered the drum to the floor with a liquid, lapping sound, as gingerly as if it were made of glass.

Richard reached for one of the phials but his hand was shaking so much he almost knocked the whole lot onto the floor. It was Kenta who stepped forward and filled a phial from the drum, her fingers swift and steady. She tucked it safely away in the soft folds of my shawl, then looked at us and gestured upwards, an unspoken question in her eyes. As quickly and quietly as we could, and keeping as far away from the walls as possible, we crept back to the stairway and down through the floor. I was carrying Gen, who showed no signs of waking, and I hoped she'd stay unconscious until we were well away from the horror of that dark chamber.

We turned left at the landing, and climbed three flights of stairs to the room above — the fourth level of the temple.

Tiger Lily was waiting for us, sitting in the sun, her tail curled tidily round her paws. I laid Gen gently down beside her with a sigh of relief — those stairs had seemed to go
on forever. Tiger Lily gave Gen an enquiring sniff, and then gave her nose an absentminded couple of licks. Gen's eyelids fluttered open. We all watched anxiously. But it was almost as though she had no memory of what had taken place below; she smiled dreamily, as if she was waking from an afternoon nap, and murmured, ‘Sunlight! And look — blue sky!'

It was true. Tall, narrow windows opened to spectacular views of the city, stretching below. The small, circular chamber was flooded with sunlight, as bright and airy as the previous one had been dark and stifling. The familiar stone pillar rose up through the centre of the room and the rack of phials and beaker were neatly laid out on a shelf near the stairway.

Best of all, recessed into one of the walls was a rectangular case, rather like an aquarium. But it was filled with air, not water, and the glass reached only about three quarters of the way up, leaving a space easily wide enough for a hand to be inserted. Resting in clear view on the floor of the case was a pure white snake the size of a pencil, apparently fast asleep.

Rich grinned round at us. ‘Well, this is the easy one. Bet we won't even need a clue to help us, let alone a forked stick.'

‘Just as well,' Jamie pointed out, ‘because there isn't one.'

I'd noticed that, too. I'd also noticed that once again the wall had silently closed over the entrance to the room while we'd been looking at the serpent. I doubted any of us would have contemplated venturing down that staircase again, but now we didn't have an option.

I'd noticed something else as well; something I didn't mention to the others. Where the upward staircase ought to be was a blank, featureless wall. Sunny and pleasant though this chamber was, it was a prison, with no visible way either in or out.

For now, at any rate, we were trapped.

‘Well,' said Kenta gallantly, ‘the time has come for you boys to stand aside, and allow the girls to play their part.' She reached down into the case and withdrew the serpent, holding it securely behind the head, just as Jamie and I had done.

This time, though, the serpent didn't writhe and twist. It dangled from Kenta's hand as placidly as a toy. And when Kenta held out the beaker for it to strike, it didn't so much as twitch.

‘Do you think it's dead?' Jamie whispered hoarsely.

Kenta was looking pensive, stroking the serpent's blunt lip temptingly against the taut membrane of the jar. ‘No, I can tell it's not dead. I can feel a pulse beating in its neck,' she said slowly. ‘There's something else … something not right.'

‘What was the line from the poem again?' I frowned. ‘
‘And Sightless lies in blindness, pale as milk.'
Maybe that's it! Maybe the serpent's blind, so it can't see the beaker.'

Kenta said nothing. The little snake dangled from her hand, limp as a piece of string.

‘Heigh ho, here we go,' sighed Jamie, sauntering over to Kenta's backpack. ‘Back to the parchment. We should have known it all looked too easy!'

Kenta replaced the snake gently in its case, and joined the rest of us round the parchment.

FEAR
COME

‘
Fear.
That would have made more sense with the last one,' Jamie muttered.

‘I don't get it,' said Rich. ‘
Fear come.
Fearsome spelt wrong? But this little snake doesn't look fearsome.'

‘This one
must
be an anagram,' said Kenta. ‘I wish I had
a pen and paper. Are you any good at anagrams, Gen?'

Gen didn't answer. She was staring at the parchment with a distracted look on her face.

‘Cream! You can make the word ‘cream' out of the letters, see?' said Kenta excitedly. ‘And it ties in with the line from the poem, too:
‘pale as milk'
. Perhaps we are supposed to feed it some milk, or something. Could that be it, do you think?'

‘I don't know quite how to tell you this, Kenta,' said Jamie with a grin, ‘but we haven't got any.'

Something — a tiny sound — made me glance over at Gen. She'd turned a ghastly greenish colour, as if she was about to pass out again, or throw up. Kenta was beside her in an instant. ‘What is it, Gen? What's the matter? Why are you so pale? Do you feel ill?'

Gen shook her head. She said nothing for what seemed like a long time. And when eventually she did speak, it was in a whisper so quiet we could barely hear.

‘It's the simplest one yet. The word
fear
over the word
come
. Fear, over come. Fear overcome. It's a message and it's meant for me. I have to overcome my fear.' She raised her anguished face, and looked up at us, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘Five, remember? Kai was right — we each have a part to play. I'm the only one this serpent will give up its venom for.'

‘Let's think this through for a minute.' Richard sounded reassuringly adult and in control. ‘Are we sure that's the correct meaning?'

There was silence. It seemed we were sure.

He sighed. ‘Who says we need the potion, anyway? We've been collecting them along the way because … well, because it kind of seemed like the logical thing to do. But
we don't
need
the Invisibility Potion. The only one we really
need
is the Healing Potion.'

A look of hope crept onto Gen's pale face.

Jamie was grinning. ‘Yeah — way to go, Rich. I vote we pack our bags and head on up —' He gestured over to the stairway … to where the exit should have been.

There was a long, long silence.

‘Well, how do we
know
it means Gen?' Jamie asked at last. ‘You aren't the only one who doesn't like snakes. A snake's a snake, even this little dopey one. I'm scared of it too!'

I felt a sudden rush of affection for Jamie, standing there with his arms folded staunchly over his chubby chest.

I clambered to my feet. ‘Good point, Jamie. Let's all have a go.'

Gen shook her head wordlessly. She didn't even bother to watch as one by one we filed up to the case, fished out the limp little snake, and held it uselessly up against the beaker. It didn't take long. Rich replaced the snake in its case, and there was an awkward pause. Slowly Gen rose to her feet. ‘I'll do it. I don't have a choice.'

She looked very small and fragile as she walked across to the glass case, her face as white as paper. As she reached the case she paused, closed her eyes and swayed slightly.

‘It's OK, Gen, it really, really is,' Jamie was gabbling. ‘It's a docile little snake, hardly a snake at all, almost more of a worm — oops, sorry, I didn't mean that. But it's quite cute, when you look at it …'

‘Shush, Jamie.' Gen spoke absently, her entire being focused on the serpent lying motionless in its cage. Slowly, she reached her hand out, ready to slip it through the opening. But then she froze. Tears were pouring down her face. ‘I can't,' she whispered. ‘I'm sorry, I just can't. And now we'll be trapped here forever. I've failed you all.'

Awkwardly, Jamie trundled up beside her; bashfully, he
took hold of her trembling hand. ‘I'll help you, Gen,' he offered. ‘Maybe if we did it together …'

‘Can I go and sit down again by the wall?' Gen whispered in a tiny, ashamed voice. Without meeting our eyes, she crossed the room and sank to the ground as far away from the snake as possible, with her knees curled up and her face buried in her arms.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘So,' said Rich. ‘Looks like that's that. But you know what my old Grannie says, Gen?
There's no such word as can't.
Maybe if it was just you it might be different. But it's not. It's all of us … even the darn cat … and Hannah.' He'd started off sounding frustrated, but now he sounded angry, and I knew the anger was hiding something stronger — fear. ‘I don't want to be mean, or unsympathetic. But I don't fancy waiting here while you
can't
, and that gong rings, and the temple closes and it gets dark … waiting to find out who'll eventually come in, and what'll happen to us when they do. Just because you —' he spat the word out — ‘
can't.
'

Gen's thin shoulders were shaking. None of us said anything. Then slowly, stiffly, she stumbled to her feet. Her face was blotched and swollen. ‘Do you think …' she looked at Jamie, her eyes pleading. ‘Do you think that it might work … if someone else handed it to me? I might be able to hold it for a second.' She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I'll try.'

We all hustled forward before she changed her mind. Kenta grabbed the beaker while Jamie fished out the snake. I hovered behind Gen in a way I hoped was supportive, ready to catch her if she fainted. Rich stood apart with his hands on his hips, watching.

‘Now, Gen,' said Jamie, ‘hold out your right hand. Come on. Just take hold of it gently, behind its head — it won't bite, I promise.' Gen's hand reached out till it was almost
touching the snake. She whimpered, and pulled back.

Richard snorted.

‘Try closing your eyes,' Kenta suggested. Gen closed her eyes, and swayed slightly. Her eyes opened again. ‘I can't. It's worse when I can't see it.'

‘Hey,' goes Rich sarcastically. ‘Here's an idea. Don't be so pathetic. Just
do it!
'

Gen looked at him. For a second, her eyes flashed fire. Her lips compressed into a thin line. She reached out and snatched the snake from Jamie's hands. Instantly, it sprang to life, writing in her grasp and hissing. Gen started to scream, in tiny, high-pitched, hysterical gasps. Her eyes were locked on the serpent, and her hands frozen, the snake twisting between them.

Like lightning, Kenta pushed the beaker under the snake's head; like lightning, the snake struck and the venom spurted. As gently as I could, I prised the snake away — Gen's hands were ice cold and stiff as stone — and replaced it in the cage. Gen backed away like someone sleepwalking, her eyes huge and unfocused, the horrible keening sound going on and on.

‘Do you think I should give her face a smack — just gently?' asked Rich hopefully.

But I was staring at the wall, where a doorway had silently appeared. Problem was, it wasn't the one that would lead us upwards, to the next level. It was the one leading down — the one we'd come through what seemed like hours before.

And from it came the faint, unmistakable sound of a cough.