“Because I don’t know how to swim,” I added. I didn’t mind getting into shallow water, but even with Tristan holding on to me, I would have a panic attack if we had to go underwater. We had taken the potion, but was that enough? Even if there was somehow air under there, I didn’t think I could manage it.
“The city is just across the water. On an island,” said Tristan. “And we will ride.”
The sword let us down gently by a small, narrow rowboat Tristan called a skiff. I took a deep breath and stepped on board. The skiff shifted, and I screamed. I fell into the water, thrashing.
Tristan pulled me out. It was only four inches deep, and I was freezing.
“I’ll go first,” he said. He stepped into the skiff, then offered me his hand.
I had to swallow back terror, and I thought about how I must have transferred my fear of the serpent to the water. But knowing that didn’t help me feel calm.
I sat down, trembling. The skiff was just barely big enough to fit the two of us, if we didn’t mind touching knees. Which we didn’t. I was glad to have a constant reassurance from Tristan’s warm legs, even if they were still damp.
I nodded to him that I was ready, and Tristan put Excoriator in the water. At first I thought he was going to use it like an oar, but he didn’t put pressure on it or draw it through the water. He simply held it, and the water moved around it in great swaths. I held tightly to the sides of the skiff and studied Tristan’s chin. He had a great chin line, really. It should be the model for the perfect chin line for guys. If I focused on that, I didn’t have to think about the water.
I could almost forget we were headed to face a giant magical serpent who wanted to kill us and the rest of the world.
Until the wind started blowing us off course.
Tristan raised the sword and spoke its name again, then put it back in the water. In just that short time, the skiff had turned around twice, and I had no idea which direction we were headed in anymore. It felt like we were surrounded by water and would never escape.
Waves began to slosh into the skiff. I saw my fingers turning blue as I held on to the wooden sides, and Tristan was leaning forward at the other end, holding the sword in the water as firmly as he could. I was too cold and scared to make any noise, and I kept telling myself we had taken an invincibility potion, so we would be fine.
It felt like we were caught in a hurricane, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. But I also knew that the serpent, Gurmun, had a lot of magic. If he didn’t want us to reach him, he would do everything in his power to stop us. Even Tristan was shuddering, and his teeth were chattering, as the skiff twirled around. Just when I thought we were going to fall into the water, there was a sudden thunk and the skiff cracked.
I was sure this was the end.
Tristan pulled me upright and then walked with me right out of the skiff and onto land. There were a few deserted buildings ahead of us, one that looked like a burned-out shed, and another that might have been five or six stories high but was now just a skeleton. The others were too far away for me to see distinguishing features, but I smelled ash in the air, and everything seemed dingy and old.
Nothing to worry about here, I thought.
I started to cry and almost fell down in relief. Tristan pulled me close—so close that I could feel the rush of blood in his forehead, pounding in rhythm with my own; so close that I could taste his lips, his sweat; so close that I could feel the hard bone of his nose as it pushed on my cheek.
It wasn’t a kiss. A kiss is what happens when you feel in love and you want to share that joy with the other person. Or when you feel the heat of passion, and you want to tease and play and be played with in return. There was no happiness in this moment of need, no pleasure, no joy. Tristan and I were pressed against each other and made into one body, one soul. We wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
Finally, Tristan put the sword away.
“Gurmun,” he said. And he nodded at something ahead of us.
I looked and could see nothing but the sun over the ruined buildings. It had grown very large and bright enough that I had to turn away from it or squint.
Then the sun started to move, and it got larger and larger. And I realized it was not the sun after all. It was a serpent with eyes that burned as brightly as two suns and with scales of red and yellow and orange, with hints of blue at the edges, like the center of a flame, where there is the most heat. It was the serpent from my worst night-mare, only it was real.
Chapter 25
Though it was huge, the serpent didn’t make the ground shake as it approached, simply because it had no legs. Instead of stomping like the giant, it slithered closer, its scales cutting smoothly and soundlessly through the sand. It was really long—so long I couldn’t see the end of its tail—and the power of its magic was unmistakable. The magic shimmered all around the scales like light, but it was invisible, like when you see steam rising off the sidewalks, and your vision is just a little distorted.
The head glared down at Tristan and me, and then it swooped.
I leaped back and put a hand to my throat. But the serpent’s head was in my face, and it breathed on me. The scent was anger and smoke.
“So you are the one with the great magic,” said the serpent. It was the first of the magical creatures I had met that spoke any sort of normal English with intelligence. I was not under any illusion about that being a good thing.
The serpent’s head moved slowly, inch by inch, around my face, its forked tongue slithering out to smell me.
“Tristan,” I said softly.
He took my hand in his. “Just be calm. He’s trying to frighten you so you don’t think before you use your magic.”
The serpent was frightening me, but I hadn’t used my magic yet. So did that mean I was winning?
“I am Gurmun,” said the serpent.
What nice manners it had, for a serpent.
“Uh. Gee. N-Nice to meet you,” I stammered.
“And you are Isolde.”
“Don’t say your name to him,” said Tristan.
“Why not?”
“He can use it to find your magical source and steal from it. The sound of your own voice saying your name is the most powerful key to magic.” Was that why Tristan had been so careful about not using his full, true name at school?
“But he told me his,” I said.
Gurmun was now sniffing the other side of my head. It felt creepy, that tongue darting out and touching my bare neck, or an earlobe.
“Only part of his name,” said Tristan. “No one knows what his full name is. Or how to say it exactly the right way.”
There must be a special way of saying my name, too, I thought. But if I didn’t know what it was, who did?
Gurmun’s whole body had curved, so I could see how thick he was at the top. He was as wide as the forty-year-old oak tree by the school. He coiled around me, only millimeters away from touching me.
I couldn’t think about names right then. I had to make myself breathe normally, because I felt like I was in an enclosed space that was getting smaller and smaller, and soon the serpent would simply tighten his coils and I would be crushed.
“I eat my victims living,” said Gurmun as his head came around the other side of me. “I like to hear them scream while I take their magic and their lives.”
My feeling of being trapped was worse than ever.
Why had we come here?
What had made me think that I could defeat this serpent?
Tristan and I should have run away from Tintagel when the animals attacked my mom’s house. We should have kept running. At least then we might have stayed alive.
“So, did you enjoy the taste of death the slurg gave to you?” Gurmun’s head weaved down until his eyes were level with mine.
I blinked fast and felt tears running down my cheeks from the pain of staring at him.
“Shield yourself,” said Tristan. “Or look away.”
But I would no
t. Gurmun might kill me, but he wouldn’t cow me.
“Thank you,” I said.
Gurmun blinked, and I had a brief respite from the light of his eyes. Then he grimaced. “What do you mean?” he asked, his tongue slipping out and licking the length of my face, from my forehead, over my eye, down to my chin and neck. “Why do you thank me?”
I refused to tremble or falter. “I did not know I had magic until you sent the slurg to me. You helped me discover who I was. And for that I thank you.”
“So that is why it has been so difficult to find you. You are new to your magic, and you come against me anyway. Ah, the brave always die well, even if they are foolish.” The serpent’s head rippled, and he made a strange hissing sound that I realized was his version of laughter.
Gurmun knocked me over with his head.
I fell into the water, panicking because I wasn’t sure which way was up. I thrashed in the water, my lungs on fire. But then I remembered what Tristan had said. Be calm.
I let my arms go out, and then I floated up to the surface. When my head came out of the water, I took a few strokes and found myself on the sand again. The wind blew into my face, and I shivered, but I stood tall. “Is that all you have?” I asked Gurmun, hands at my hips.
He slithered closer.
“Isolde, be strong!” shouted Tristan. He was standing with his sword held high, waiting for the right moment.
Gurmun wrapped himself around me and began to squeeze. “You like to be held tight by the little warrior, don’t you? You believe in love conquering all, just as your father did, I suppose?”
“Yes.” I got the word out, but it was the last one I spoke. As he pressed me harder and harder, I could feel my ribs begin to strain. I knew from Mom that if they broke, the real danger was a punctured lung. But broken bones wouldn’t kill me, as long as I could deal with the pain.
I stirred up a fireball and concentrated so that I could send it from my eyes to Gurmun’s.
He let go of me in that instant.
“I see you have some of your father’s power,” he said, and pulled back.
I was feeling pretty good about myself then, able to send fireballs however I wanted. “And my mom’s invincibility potion,” I said.
“Oh?” said Gurmun.
Knowing that Tristan and I had drunk the potion had given me a sense of distance from the serpent’s power. Dad hadn’t had the potion, but we did. So whatever Gurmun did to us, he couldn’t kill us, right?
“You think a witch’s potion will work against me?” said Gurmun. Then he spat at me.
The saliva felt warm at first, and then it began to burn. I heard a sizzle, and when I looked down, I saw some faint smoke rising from my skin. I tried to shake off the spit, but it was too thick and viscous. Where I shook myself, it seemed to cling even more.
Gurmun hissed, laughing. Then he reared up and moved more quickly than I would have thought possible. In a moment, he had spat on Tristan, as well.
“Tristan?” I said.
“It’s his magic. It is eating your mother’s potion,” Tristan said to me.
Had he known beforehand that this could happen? Why hadn’t he told me? Why had he even bothered to take the potion in the first place? It had gotten us here, but what good was that? Maybe it would have been better to die in the storm while we’d crossed the lake. Then I wouldn’t have had to look into Gurmun’s triumphant eyes.
“Now you are stripped down to your true self,” said Gurmun. “How does it feel?” He bent down, coiled around me, and once again tried to crush me.
I was finished with being calm and holding back. I didn’t even think about using magic. I just hit him in the face with my fist and started kicking at him.
His eyes looked startled, and he made some low sounds of pain. He began to uncoil from me.
I focused and sent a fireball into his face. I heard him scream loudly; it was a sound that seemed to reverberate into the ground.
“Isolde, don’t be fooled!” Tristan called to me.
I had been leaning forward to see what damage I had done, but I pulled back just in time. Gurmun snapped at my arm.
I think he would have sheared it off. Instead, he took only the tip of one of my fingers.
I felt faint just seeing the dripping blood. But I shook it off and stood tall.
Gurmun was not damaged at all.
“Shall I take you bit by bit?” asked Gurmun, looming closer again. “A delicious meal you would make that way, many small courses to heighten the anticipation of the final one, the dessert—your death.”
“Do what you will!” I challenged him.
“Isolde!” cried Tristan. He ran toward me and shook me. “He is still trying to frighten you. You have not used even the smallest part of your magic here.”
“Has she not?” said Gurmun disdainfully.
“Isolde, he has been afraid of you since you were born. He knows that you are more powerful than he is. That is why he killed your father and why he has been seeking you out ever since.”
Then Gurmun’s head bent down to Tristan, and he seemed genuinely angry for the first time. “Little warrior. You think either of you will survive another moment if I do not wish it?”
“Yes, I do!” exclaimed Tristan.
“Do you not know that I allowed you to leave Curvenal? That I sent others to track you, because I believed you would be my best hope of finding the girl with magic?”
Tristan’s sword arm began to droop. “No,” he whispered.
“But now you have come back and brought her with you. In the end, you have been as much a servant of mine as the slurg or the giant—more so, I think.”
Tristan gritted his teeth and shoved his sword toward Gurmun.
The serpent moved out of the way.
“Tristan, don’t listen to him!” I said. He could not let Gurmun beat him before the battle had begun.
“Try to prick me with that pin of yours,” Gurmun said to Tristan. “See who it hurts, you or me.” Gurmun opened his mouth and showed his teeth. They were all sharp and even, thousands of them in parallel rows, on his upper and lower jaws.
Tristan swung Excoriator and missed again.
I heard the sound of the sword cutting through air.
Gurmun hissed, then lifted his head and positioned his body closer to Tristan. “Right there,” he said, pressing a thick part forward. “Try that. That will surely hurt me.”
“Tristan, don’t,” I called out, sure that it was some trick.
But Tristan wouldn’t listen. He stabbed with all the force he had. I saw the muscles in his shoulders working and the effort in his face as he brought the sword down.
The weapon clanked and bounced off the serpent’s scales, and Tristan had to run to retrieve it.
Gurmun made his hissing laugh again. “Now what have you learned, little warrior?” he asked Tristan. “Put that away. Someone might get hurt. Someone human, that is.”
My heart felt as if it had fallen into my stomach. Now there really was only my magic left, and nothing left to distract Gurmun.
But Tristan did not give up easily. He took the sword and moved slowly, his shoulders hunched as if in defeat. I caught a glimpse of his eyes shining and felt a moment’s hope.
He got close enough to the serpent that he could stab with the sword again, and did, this time not directly onto the scales but between them.
Gurmun flinched, and a quiver ran up and down the length of his body. Then he began to scream. Black bile poured out of his mouth, and his head fell to the ground, flopping this way and that in the sand.
Tristan removed the sword with a jerk. Then he stuck it in again.
The serpent writhed and screamed even more loudly. Birds flapped past us in black clouds. The lake water rose in high waves that pounded the shore.
Tristan pulled out the sword again.
The serpent did not move.
There was a long moment when I stared, waiting for more.
But there was
no sign of life in Gurmun, and when Tristan kicked at him, the serpent’s carcass only slipped to one side, its mouth lolled open.
“You did it!” I said. I rushed toward Tristan and put my arms around him. I could not believe it. I hadn’t had to use my magic! Maybe Tristan was the one who had been meant to do this all along. Curvenal was his home, after all. He belonged here. He knew Gurmun better than I did.
I was glad I had been here to see it, and glad that Tristan had been able to kill Gurmun with one stroke. One really good stroke.
I looked at the tip of my finger and saw that it was already starting to heal. We were going to be fine now.
But Tristan shook his head slowly. “Something is wrong.”
“What is it?”
Tristan would have to cut off Gurmun’s head, but I was certain he could do that if he got in under the scales around the scruff of the serpent’s neck.
“It was too easy,” he said.
“Easy?” I thought about the storm and Tristan’s first attempt and Gurmun’s laugh. “It wasn’t easy. He was just overconfident, that’s all.”
“You think he knew I could cut between his scales, and he just thought I wouldn’t make a second attempt?”
“You’re a human. You’re smart. He wasn’t. He underestimated you.”
“Or I underestimated him,” said Tristan. We both stared as the serpent began to lift his head once more, and his whole body rose to tower above us.
“You killed me. Congratulations, little warrior,” said Gurmun. “Now you can go on your way and have your celebration. And leave the real magic one here with me to finish the job.”
He had been faking! We hadn’t done anything to him at all.
The battle was only just begun.
Chapter 26
Tristan stood at my side, groaning in despair. “But—” I said. “But—” This wasn’t possible. Tristan had killed the serpent. Hadn’t he?
“Death cannot stop me,” said Gurmun. “Your father learned that. I am surprised he did not tell you. Oh, but I killed him before he could speak to you again, didn’t I, little magic one?” He shook himself, and I heard the swooshing sound of his scales sliding against each other.
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