The Serpents of Arakesh (19 page)

Gen was first to move. She skipped through the veil of water and darted across the narrow room to the cabinet, her face alight with anticipation. I felt a sudden, urgent qualm of foreboding and opened my mouth to tell her not to touch it until we were all there together.

She popped up onto her toes and peeped over the edge. Instantly, she let out a shriek — a shrill cry of such horror we all recoiled, and I felt the blood drain from my face. She sprang back and stood pressed against the opposite wall, as if she were trying to burrow backwards through it. Her face was ashen, her eyes staring fixedly at the casket.

We all gawked at her, almost as horrorstruck as she was. What had she seen in the casket? My mind raced with possibilities: some kind of monster? Human remains? A curse? A message of doom?

Richard was grinning, somewhat sheepishly. ‘Hey, Gen, keep it down, will ya?' he grumbled, in a voice that sounded reassuringly normal. ‘Do you want that grey guy coming
back to see what all the racket's about? What's the matter? What's in the box?'

Gen opened and shut her mouth like a fish, making little pushing motions with her hands. She didn't take her eyes off the casket. Kenta moved over and put her arm very gently round her, murmuring something in her ear. Jamie edged closer to the smooth stone doorway. I looked at Rich, and Rich looked at me. Together we stepped up to the cabinet, and looked inside.

We saw a sloping lid over a deep, sturdy wooden box. The lid was made of smooth, clear glass, with a wooden rim about the width of my hand. Under the glass was what looked like a miniature desert landscape: a bed of fine, greyish sand; a couple of pieces of dry driftwood; some grey rocks about the size of my fist, arranged in a kind of pyramid. A little pool of water over in one corner. And a tiny mouse, crouched over by the rocks, keeping as still as a stone, as if it was playing a very serious game of hide and seek. I felt myself start to grin. Surely it hadn't been the mouse? Typical girl …

And then I saw them.

They were so well camouflaged they were almost invisible. One was stretched in front of the driftwood at the front of the cabinet. And I could see only the head of the other one, just visible on the far side of the rocks.

Serpents.

My heart gave a great, painful lurch in my chest, as if it had stopped beating and then kick-started itself again. I swallowed, and took a deep breath. I glanced over at Rich. He licked his lips, and gave me a pale, unconvincing grin.

Over by the entrance, Jamie quavered, ‘What
is
it?'

Richard and I both jumped. ‘Snakes,' I said, but my voice came out in a funny kind of croak. I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Serpents. Two of them. The Guardians of the Potion, I guess.'

We all stood round the casket, peering in. Well, not all of us. Gen was still huddled against the wall, and didn't look like coming any closer.

‘Leave her be,' Kenta whispered. ‘Remember what she said at the very beginning, about worms? Well, this is a thousand times worse. For her, this is unspeakable.'

Jamie and Kenta were up on their toes, their breath making misty crescents on the glass. The snakes — going by the one we could see clearly — were about the length of a ruler, and thicker than my finger. Their skins were a uniform silvery-grey, with a shovel-shaped head at one end and a thin, pointed tail at the other. Both were utterly motionless, watching us intently with their unblinking black eyes.

I'd never seen a snake in real life. I wondered if they were poisonous. Not much point in being Guardians of the Potion if they weren't, I guessed.

Then Jamie spoke up. ‘Where's the potion they're guarding? All I can see in here is that little pool, and I have a feeling that's just their drinking water.'

It was true. There was nothing in the cabinet except for the serpents, the mouse, the rocks, the driftwood, the sand and the pool of what I had to agree was almost certainly water. So where was the potion?

On the shelf above the cabinet? All I could see were three wooden racks of phials, ten in each, each phial the size of my little finger, with a cork stopper in the top. All empty. And the glass beaker. It had a transparent membrane, like plastic, stretched tightly over the top, tied on with silver thread. I could see a pouring lip through the cover. But it was empty.

Then I noticed one of the forked staffs leaning up against the wall, and for a moment my heart leapt. But
what good was a magical staff if we didn't know how to use it?

Desperately, I scanned the room. A narrow staircase led upwards over in the far corner, but the Curator hadn't been anywhere near it. He had stood here, right where we were standing. He had opened the casket, brandished the staff, measured and poured, measured and poured. And he had taken something out of the casket. But what? And where was it now?

‘Maybe he took all the potion,' said Richard bleakly. ‘Maybe it
was
in here, the serpents were guarding it and now there's none left. Or maybe there's more up those stairs.'

Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm, cold as ice. It was Gen, her hair wild, her eyes red from crying and her skin as pale as snow.

‘You're all so
dumb
! The serpents aren't
guarding
the potion.' She slid a glance at the cabinet, flinched, and looked away. ‘The serpents
are
the potion.'

We stared at her blankly.

‘That's what he was doing,' she said tonelessly. ‘The Curator. He was milking the serpents. The venom of the serpents — that's the Potion of Healing. And that's what we're going to have to do, too, if we want to save Hannah.'

It all fell into place: the beaker; the membrane tightly stretched over the top; the forked staffs. Even the measured gestures of the Curator suddenly made sense. He had simply been moving with extreme caution.

‘I've seen people milking snakes on TV,' Jamie was saying. ‘There's nothing to it, really. The big thing is to grab the snake right behind the head, so it can't twist round and bite you. The forked stick's for pinning its head to the ground.'

He sounded perky and full of confidence, but I noticed he'd moved a pace back from the cabinet. Kenta and Gen were holding hands. Rich was standing, arms folded, looking dubious.

I looked down at the serpents again. They were the only things in the room that didn't seem to have a problem meeting my eyes. I sighed, and picked up the staff.

‘Open the lid for me, Rich,' I said. ‘Let's do it.'

With the lid open, I moved round to the side of the cabinet, planning my strategy. One of the serpents had just been milked, and would be dry. Jamie wasn't the only one who watched nature programmes. But which one? What would I do if I was a snake and I'd just been manhandled? I'd go off and hide behind a rock. So my money was on the serpent stretched out by the driftwood.

Snakes are just reptiles, after all,
I told myself.
And these are Serpents of Healing — the good guys. Give me the choice between meeting one of these or one of the Faceless on a dark night, and I know which I'd go for.

I felt my thoughts reaching out to the serpent, soothing him, calming him with my mind, the way I always talked to animals in my head.
Hey there, guy. Let's make this easy on both of us, huh?

Very slowly and carefully, the way the Curator had done, I raised the stick above the open cabinet, positioning the forked end above the snake. His tongue flickered. I took a deep, slow breath. As quickly and gently as I could, I plunged the end of the staff into the sand, pinning his head in the fork.

Instantly his body writhed, and his tail lashed. Instinctively, I reached down with my other hand and grabbed his body in my fist, just above the tail.

‘Rich,' I breathed, ‘hold the stick for me — I need another hand.'

I felt Rich's hand above mine on the staff, steady as a rock. I let go, and reached my free hand into the casket. I slid my curled index finger under the snake's neck, just below his head, and put my thumb firmly on top. I nodded to Richard, and slowly, carefully, he moved the stick away.

I lifted the serpent out of the casket, strung like muscular rope between my hands. I could feel him flexing, testing my grip. But I had him. He felt cool and dry and I thought I could feel his pulse beating against my finger. Rich had the beaker ready and held it out, resting it against the edge of the cabinet.

I held the snake's head just above the thin membrane. This was it. I loosened my grip fractionally, and instantly, like lightning, the snake struck. His mouth made a solid
thunk
as his blunt snout hit the tight drum of skin, and there was a thin, squirting sound of liquid hitting glass under pressure. He was clamped onto the top of the beaker; I could see his fangs, curved and deadly, through the glass. And out of them, like liquid squirting from a syringe, spurted twin needles of milky venom.

I held him there until he was spent. Then, as gently as I could, I prised his mouth free and lowered him carefully into the casket, where he slithered away behind the rock.

Richard closed the lid and held up the beaker. The venom lay in a shallow pool at the bottom, gleaming with a silvery phosphorescence, like mother-of-pearl. It was infinitely wonderful.

‘Are you OK, Adam?' Kenta's voice sounded dim and far away.

My hands, so steady moments before, were shaking uncontrollably. There was a strange lump in my throat. I nodded, and tried to smile at her. I wasn't seeing Kenta, though … I wasn't even seeing the potion. All I could see,
as clearly as if she was standing in front of me, was Hannah, in her fairy headgear, smiling at me with sparkling eyes.

Kenta poured every drop of the potion into one of the delicate crystal phials. It only just fitted. Without thinking, I pulled my shawl out of my pack and handed it to her. ‘I reckon we should wrap it — to protect it. So it doesn't get broken.'

Jamie's eyes darted from me to the shawl, and back again. Slowly, he started to smile. ‘What's that, Adam? Funny thing for a guy to have in his backpack …'