The Serpents of Arakesh (22 page)

We froze. Even Gen was instantly silent.

Jamie hissed, ‘Quick — hide!'

But there was nowhere to hide. The only possible place was behind the pillar — and there was no way it would conceal us all. The options flashed through my mind in a second, while the soft scrape of footsteps echoed closer up the stairwell.

‘The potion,' I breathed. I ripped the cover off the beaker and handed it to Kenta. Without hesitating she put it to her lips and took a tiny sip. Instantly, both she and the beaker vanished. I groped, felt her hand, felt my fingers close round the smooth glass. I had it again; passed it to Jamie. He sipped, and was gone. Rich. Flick — he vanished. Last, Gen. ‘Don't think about it —
quick!
' Gone. There was only a drop left. I tilted the beaker and sipped; felt a weird flickering chill. I held out one hand in front of my face. There was nothing there. Softly as a shadow, I crept to the shelf and replaced the beaker.

We'd done it! I scanned the room — and my heart gave a sickening lurch. There sat Tiger Lily in a patch of sun, preening her whiskers. I lunged for her and snatched her up — just as the tall, cloaked form of the white Curator appeared in the doorway.

Tiger Lily didn't seem at all put out to have her beauty routine interrupted. She reached up one velvet paw and gave my face a pat, as if to reassure herself I was really there. Then she gave my chin a couple of licks.

The wall closed again behind the Curator. He glided across to the shelf and took down the beaker. With an exclamation of annoyance, he fumbled in the folds of his gown, and took out a new cover and tie. He stretched it over the top of the beaker with practiced hands, and crossed to the glass-fronted recess. Reached in, withdrew the snake, hissing and writhing. He held it up to the beaker and the snake struck.

And of course, not even the tiniest drop of venom spurted out. In any other situation, there'd have been something comical about the way the Curator held the beaker up to the light to double check it was still empty, with a look of utter disbelief.

But there was nothing comical at all about the look that dawned on his face — a look of slow comprehension, then rage, twisting his features into a grotesque mask.

From somewhere beside me, one of the girls let out the tiniest whimper, almost too soft to hear. Almost … but not quite.

The Curator smiled. He shuffled slowly towards us, hands outstretched, groping and patting at the air, like a nightmarish game of blind man's buff.

Tiger Lily started to struggle. She wriggled and squirmed. I hung on desperately, but with a slither and a twist, she slipped out of my arms. I made a frantic grab — but I couldn't see what I was grabbing at, and missed.

I couldn't see what I was grabbing at.

There must have been a tiny smear of potion on my chin — just enough to work on a little cat like Tiger Lily. She was safe!

Pat … pat-pat … pat … The Curator had turned, and was groping his way towards where I stood, his eyes glittering as they probed the emptiness. But from the floor came a hiss — the hiss of an angry, frightened cat.

The Curator stopped, disoriented.
Waaaaaaaoooow. Sssssssss!
I could see Tiger Lily clearly in my mind's eye — low to the ground, ears flattened, tail like a bottlebrush, eyes fixed on the Curator. But of course I couldn't really see her … and neither could he. For a moment he looked uncertain.
Waaaaoooooooooow!
The eerie, feral cry unwound again, soft at first, then louder, then trailing away to nothing.

The Curator's hooded eyes searched the ground. His thin, grey lips peeled away from his yellowed teeth in an answering snarl, and he hissed back at the invisible presence on the floor.

And then he was staggering backwards, clawing at his chest, batting blindly at his face. Thin, parallel scratches streaked down his cheeks like someone drawing on a magic slate with an invisible pen, beading with blood as I watched. He took two stumbling steps backwards … lost his balance … tottered and fell. His head hit the stone floor with a crack like a rifleshot.

There was a long, long silence.

‘Do you think he's …'

‘Dunno. Hope so.'

‘He may have cracked his skull. We should help him … I suppose.'

‘Get real, Kenta. The only thing we need to think about is whether to tie him up, or get out now.'

‘I vote we tie him up. I know some real wicked knots, from Scouts.'

Suddenly I realised the voices weren't disembodied any more … gradually, faint as ghosts at first, the figures of
the others were taking shape around me.

Tiger Lily materialised on the floor beside the prone Curator, cleaning her paws fastidiously.

‘That didn't last long, did it?' said Rich. ‘I guess because we only had a tiny sip.'

‘It lasted long enough.' I was digging in my pack for Q's rope. I tossed it to Jamie. ‘Come on then, Jamie — let's see how good those knots are.'

In no time flat, the Curator was trussed up like a chicken.

Jamie stood back, dusting off his hands on the bum of his breeches, looking pleased with himself.

‘How about a gag?' suggested Gen, sounding remarkably cheerful.

Suddenly, I felt a laugh bubbling up inside me. ‘Aha! Now that you mention it,' I said, reaching deep into my pack again, ‘I do believe I've got the very thing!'

We left the Curator snoring on the floor, my bright red boxers adding a festive touch to the scene. Jamie had amazed us all by producing the Curator's magic pass with a smug flourish that for once it was easy to forgive — especially when it worked first time.

‘Four down, one to go,' said Rich cheerfully as we trudged up the final flight of stairs. ‘And this one doesn't look too bad either — at first sight, at any rate.'

All in all, things hadn't exactly gone according to plan, and I reckon we all shared the same sense of dread at the prospect of what we might find at the top of the staircase. Once again, though, the room was bright and airy. My eyes scanned the walls. Shelf: check. Phials: check. Beaker: check. Staff: check.

But where the snake's case had been in the room below, there was a blank wall. Well, not blank: a wall entirely covered with what looked to me like weird variations of letters of the alphabet. They stretched up from about waist
level to as high as I could reach.

‘Cool!' Jamie said beside me. ‘Runes!'

‘Not runes,' Gen contradicted. ‘Letters of the alphabet. Look — there's an
s
, and there's a
q
… and there's another
s
, over there.

‘Yeah, but
that
one's not a letter of the alphabet, is it?' Jamie objected.

‘I think some of these may be from alphabets of different languages,' Kenta chipped in. ‘That sign over there: the circle with the line through it. I think that's Greek.'

‘Yeah, you're right, Kenta: and see there? That's pi, the Greek letter pi you use to calculate the area of circles and stuff like that. Maths rules!'

‘I see an
e
over there!' said Rich, not to be outdone.

Sure enough, as I stared at the wall it gradually became less of a meaningless jumble. Here and there was a letter I recognised, some repeated more than once, but the vast majority were weird squiggles I'd never seen before.

But no matter how carefully I scanned the wall, I couldn't find the one I was looking for: a squiggle that might give us a clue as to where the snake was hiding. Even though there were enough letters — or runes, or symbols, or whatever — to fill a dictionary, the Serpent of Beauty and Eternal Youth was nowhere to be seen.

I listened to the others exclaiming and arguing with a growing feeling of unease. The triumphant buzz I'd felt at seeing the Curator hit the deck was wearing off, and I was starting to think logically again. And logic told me that some time — sooner rather than later — someone was going to wonder why he was taking so long and come looking. And when they found him, he'd be tied up in enough knots to sink a battleship, with a royal issue pair of satin boxers stuffed in his mouth.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now I
desperately wished we'd simply left him lying there, out cold and looking like staying that way. After all, he'd only
heard
Tiger Lily, not seen her … and without the rope and boxers, there'd have been no proof the rest of us ever existed. But it was too late for wishing. Way too late.

Now, whoever found him wouldn't have to be a genius to figure out that there was something unusual going on … and work out where the culprits must have gone. The Invisibility Potion had saved us last time, but it was finished, right down to the last drop.

Just as before, I was betting the only way out would be up — once we'd cracked the code that revealed the snake and the hidden door to the stairway. And I was uncomfortably aware that we were leaving solid ground further and further below us. For all we knew, we were following each successive clue, and every successive stairway, deeper into a trap — a trap from which, like the poem said, there'd be no escape.

‘Guys,' I chipped in, ‘this is all real interesting and educational — but I think we need to get started on working out the clue and finding the snake. Because unless he's on an extended morning-tea break, they're going to come looking for that white Curator pretty soon.'

Kenta scurried over to her backpack and produced the parchment without another word. This time, the message was longer.

‘It's a riddle,' said Gen, hot on the trail.

‘And it's cryptic,' agreed Kenta.

‘What's cryptic?' asked Rich.

‘It means the meaning is hidden — not straightforward.' Jamie explained.

Richard groaned.

‘Could it link in some way with the main poem?' Kenta suggested.

‘Bright beauty burns with fire eternal as a gem

An emerald vision age will never end?'

‘Eternal …' murmured Gen.

‘Maybe we need to approach it logically again,' suggested Jamie. ‘Ask ourselves what the poem is describing. What
is
the beginning of eternity? Or, what
is
the beginning of every end? It sounds like a contradiction to me.'

‘Unless it was a circle,' said Rich slowly. ‘Circles don't have beginnings or ends.'

‘Good thinking, Rich,' said Jamie. ‘Are there any plain circles on the wall?'

But there weren't.

‘I've got it!' said Kenta suddenly. ‘It mentions beginnings and ends twice. That must mean they have special significance. It must be the beginning and end letters of the alphabet —
a
and
z
!'

But no matter how carefully we looked, we could see neither the letter
a
nor the letter
z
anywhere.

‘I don't suppose it could be those letters in a different alphabet?' Rich said desperately. ‘Like, maybe, Russian or something?'

We all stared blankly at the wall. No one needed to point out that the chances of any of us knowing what
a
and
z
were in Russian were non-existent.

‘I know the
Greek
for
a
,' said Jamie suddenly. ‘It's alpha. It looks a bit like
a
, too. Look — that's it over there!'

‘Now we're getting somewhere!' said Gen excitedly. ‘Alpha, beta, gamma …'

‘Delta …' supplied Kenta.

There was a pause. Rich and I exchanged a glance. For
a moment it had looked pretty promising, but there again, it was a bit much to hope that three kids would know the whole of the Greek alphabet.

‘Pi?' offered Jamie hopefully.

Gen's face was screwed up in concentration. ‘We haven't got time for this! We have to hurry! Oh, why can't I
think!
I know it — I
know
it! I just can't — alpha and … alpha and …'

‘Omega!' squeaked Kenta triumphantly.

‘Yes! Omega! And it's like … an upside-down horseshoe, I think. Is there one? Oh, please let there be one!' Gen was hopping up and down, her face glowing.

‘I saw something like that a second ago, I'm sure,' said Jamie. ‘Yeah, look: over there!'

Rich marched over to the wall. ‘What do you reckon? We push them, or what?'

With one finger, he pushed the alpha sign, and then the omega. Nothing happened.

‘Maybe you have to press them at the same time,' suggested Gen.

Rich did. Nothing.

‘Or cover them up with your hand — kind of … warm them up, maybe?' hazarded Jamie.

But that didn't work either.

And then it hit me. ‘Jamie —
the pass!
' I couldn't believe we hadn't thought of it before. ‘The Curator's magic pass! Let's forget about the clue — who needs the darn potion, anyhow?'

Jamie scurried over to the wall and swept the pass up and down near where we'd come in. Up and down, back and forth. He turned it over and tried again. Nothing. I watched the hope fade from his face; bleakly, he shook his head. ‘The other one opened easy, first time. Sorry, guys — it's just not working. Maybe they only have access up to a certain level.'

‘So … back to the clue,' said Kenta reluctantly. ‘The previous ones haven't required any special knowledge — we've been successful using simple common sense. Why should this one be different?'

‘Hard to see where the word
simple
comes into it, though,' said Gen wryly. ‘The symbols have to be the key, and they're anything but simple. There must be something we're not seeing. Don't some symbols have … oh — a philosophical meaning or something, kind of condensed down to one character? Maybe it's one of those.'

‘Yeah, right — and we just have to figure out which one,' muttered Rich, staring gloomily at the wall. ‘Easy, huh?'

Gen rolled her eyes in his direction impatiently. ‘I bet the answer's staring us in the face. Like, say …' she read the poem over again, lips moving and she mouthed the words silently. Then her face lit up. ‘Infinity, perhaps?'

‘And there's the sign for infinity!' yelped Jamie. ‘Over there, see: an eight, lying on its side!'

But the sign for infinity didn't work either.

‘You're very quiet, Adam,' said Kenta, looking over at me. ‘Have you any thoughts?'

I shrugged awkwardly. ‘Nah, not a single one,' I admitted. ‘I wish I had. I feel totally useless. This is the kind of thing I'm worst at. Puzzles and riddles and poetry and stuff like that. It'd have to be dead simple for
me
to figure it out. Something real, real basic.' I glanced down at the poem. ‘Like, the letter
e
, or something.'

‘Well, you contribute in other ways, Adam,' said Kenta, giving me a shy smile and putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Gen was staring at me like she'd seen a ghost. ‘What did you just say?' she croaked.

‘Nothing, forget it.' I shrugged.

‘You said:
the letter e.
The answer
is
the letter
e
! It's the
first letter of eternity, the last letter of time and space, the first letter of end and the last letter of place!'

‘But
which
letter
e
?' said Rich. ‘There are two of them.'

‘No, there aren't: there are three.'

‘No,
four
— look, there's one over on that side.'

But I was betting there'd be five. And sure enough, Kenta spotted a fifth one hiding away up at the top.

Relief flooded through me in a tide so strong my head swam.
Please, please — let it work!
Each of us covered an
e
with the palm of our right hand. And without a sound, two things happened.

The wall covering the exit doorway faded away to nothing … and so did the flagstone beside Kenta's left foot. She leapt back with a little shriek of surprise, and moments later we were all leaning over it, even Gen.

There in the cavity left by the flagstone was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. It was a snake, of course, but as it slid with silken grace round its pit, the sunlight flashed and played on its skin like light on a precious emerald. You longed to touch it. Every couple of circuits it would rear up and spread its hood like a cobra — a hood iridescent with blues and greens and turquoise deep as the sea, like the colours of a peacock's tail.

This time, Kenta insisted it was her turn to milk the serpent of its venom. But Rich and I hovered close. In spite of its beauty, there was something about this serpent that made me feel uneasy. It was a lot bigger than any of the others except the giant black one; there was something in its eyes I didn't like, and I had a sense that it was somehow more aggressive.

But all went smoothly, and soon Kenta had handed me the phial of shimmering emerald potion, and was kneeling to replace the serpent in its pit. As she let go it reared up, spreading its hood and hissing angrily. It wove to and fro, like liquid green fire. Its eyes glittered, and its forked
tongue flickered dangerously.

Gen, who'd been sitting near the edge of the pit, scooted backwards hastily. And in that instant, its attention drawn by her sudden movement, the serpent struck. With the speed of light, its head flashed forward and its fangs fastened on Gen's hand, outspread on the floor.

I leapt forward and prised its jaws free and threw it roughly back into the pit, wishing there was a lid to slam over it. Every drop of colour drained from Gen's face, and she swayed, staring at the twin drops of blood beading the back of her hand. Rich goggled, his face a mask of shock. But it was Jamie who grabbed Gen under the arms and tugged her away from the brim of the pit, out of harm's way.

Kenta crouched beside her, peering anxiously into her face. ‘Gen — Gen, are you all right? Do you feel short of breath? Do you feel pins and needles in your hand? Heart palpitations? Oh, I wish I knew more about snakebite!'

Amazingly, the calmest of us all seemed to be Gen. She took a deep, shaky breath, and when she answered she sounded reassuringly normal — even impatient. ‘Don't panic, Kenta. It hurts, like after an injection. I feel … numb.'

‘
Numb?
' repeated Kenta, alarm flashing onto her face like a neon light. ‘Quick — let me take your pulse!'

‘No, not
that
kind of numb — just numb with horror. I feel like I've been bitten on the hand, and it's sore, and I'm in the middle of the worst day in my whole life … and I wish I was home. That's all.'

‘Well, when you think about it, maybe there isn't too much to worry about,' chipped in Rich encouragingly. ‘Luckily it's just been milked. And let's not forget which serpent it is. Rather than expecting Gen to keel over and die, you'd expect … well … something …
different
to happen.'

There was a pause while we digested his words. We stared at Gen. She flushed — a bright pink tide that started off at the bump at the end of her nose and worked its way outward, till even the tips of her sticky-out ears were glowing like traffic lights. She darted a little, shy, hopeful glance up at us. ‘Oh! Am I …'