The Serpents of Arakesh

by V M Jones

  He clasped wrists solemnly with each of us in turn, and then led us to the back of the shop, after flipping the sign on the door to read ‘Closed’. As he did, he winked at Kai, and I wondered what his absent pa would have felt about such flexible opening hours.

  ‘Now,’ said Hob, with the confidence of one on his own turf, ‘Kai has told me who you are, and why you have come to Arakesh. I think the whole thing’s really tempered —’

  ‘And honed!’ added Kai, giving him a nudge.

  ‘Aye, tempered and honed. And because any friend of Kai’s is a friend of mine, and because you won the force-back final for us, I’ll help you all I can.’ He stuck his hands through the belt of his jerkin, and beamed at us.

  We grinned back. Even though it was hard to see how this scrawny urchin would be able to help, it felt good to have another friend.

  ‘Now, you have a heavy head, Hob,’ said Kai, in the tones of one acknowledging his friend’s long-standing reputation, and Hob nodded in agreement, looking modest. ‘And you’ve read all those books your Pa has —’

  ‘Well, bits of them, and only when he made me.’

  ‘Aye, but more than the rest of us. And you be the one with ideas, when there’s a plan to be made.’

  Hob scratched his head, and sighed. It seemed like the responsibility of being the ideas man was a weighty one, but I could see he felt he had a position to live up to, and was clearly not about to admit defeat.

  ‘Well …’ he said at last, ‘we could look through the parchments, and see if there be anything there. We could even go through the books —’ he slid a reluctant glance over at a bank of shelves crammed with musty-looking leather-bound volumes, ‘but that would take a while longer.’

  ‘Aye, let’s leave the books,’ agreed Kai hurriedly.

  Taking a lantern with him, Hob led us over to a tall chest of drawers, almost like a filing cabinet. He produced a key on a string from round his neck, and unlocked it. ‘I’ll swing for this if Pa finds out,’ he told us cheerfully, sliding open a drawer and extracting a dusty folder of thick parchment, which he handed to Kai. He dug out another, and gave it to Gen. ‘Here — one for each of you. Find yourself a perch to sit on, and look through the parchments. If you find anything you think might be of help, give me a whistle. I’ll put the armour together again and turn the sign round, and then I’ll join you. I just hope Pa don’t take a turn for the better.’

  Even with the light of the lantern, our eyes were burning and our heads aching before half an hour had passed. The thick parchment was dusty and old, and I sneezed now and then as I leafed through my pile, giving each sheet a cursory glance.

  Deep down, I was convinced we were wasting our time. We had absolutely no idea what we were looking for, and I had more than a suspicion Hob had made the suggestion of the parchments partly to save face. But at least we were doing something, no matter how unpromising it seemed. So, like the others, I worked on, feeling the back of my neck stiffen and my bum gradually go to sleep.

  Some of the parchments contained what looked like recipes, and some what I guessed might be spells. There were old maps, some torn and faded, and complicated lists of provisions and equipment. There were whole files of parchments in languages I’d never seen before, and in strange characters it was impossible to read. There were long, complicated legal-looking documents, lists of rules for tournaments, and sheet after sheet of boring-looking historical documents.

  Every now and then someone would pipe up: ‘How about this?’ At first, there’d be a buzz of excitement and a rush to examine the whatever it was they were holding out, but after an hour or so we were all at the stage where we’d say wearily, ‘I’ve just finished a whole file of those.’

  I was on my fifth file, and seriously wondering whether to suggest we stopped for a break, when Kenta spoke up.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ she asked. ‘It seems different from the rest …’ she paused shyly, ‘and it may be my imagination, but it seems my fingers … tingled when I touched it. But it mentions the balm of healing …’

  We were on her in a flash. The parchment was yellow with age, and so brittle it was starting to crumble away in one corner. And, weird though it sounded, what Kenta had said was true: when I touched it, my fingers tingled, as though there was a very faint current of electricity running through it.

  ‘It’s in our language, too,’ said Gen dubiously, peering at the thick, ornate characters over Kenta’s shoulder.

  ‘No, it ain’t,’ objected Kai. ‘I can’t read it.’

  ‘Well, that don’t mean much,’ retorted Hob. ‘Let me see.’

  And gradually, as we squinted at the letters in the dim light of the lantern, we realised we could read the writing — and that we had struck gold.

  The parchment

  It was Kenta who read it out, in a voice that sounded thin in the gloom.

  The Balm of Healing rests beneath the towering trees of stone

  Guardian of Inner Voices has whispering leaves as home;

  Power rings the walls of iron with silk

  And Sightless lies in blindness, pale as milk.

  Bright Beauty burns with fire eternal as a gem:

  An emerald vision age will never end.

  The words settled in the silence as softly as snowflakes.

  Then: ‘That’s all very well,’ said Jamie abruptly, ‘but listen to this:

  ‘For those who dare defile the steps of five

  Lies no escape — they shall not leave alive

  Unless bright Serpent Sun to Zenith climb

  And fang of light doth pierce the phial of time.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Kai piped up, sounding determinedly cheerful: ‘That’s only if they be caught, of course.’ But somehow his words had a slightly hollow ring.

  ‘Well,’ said Hob soberly, ‘there ain’t no doubt that this is what you be looking for.’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t understand a word of it,’ said Rich. ‘Does it mean anything to either of you? Have you heard of the Steps of Five?’

  But their blank faces told us the poem meant no more to them than to any of us. And like Rich, none of us could make head or tail of it.

  ‘Why is all the writing so far from the top?’ asked Kenta, peering at it.

  ‘And the way the poem is written in circles is strange,’ said Gen. ‘Let’s copy it out so it’s easier to read, and then put the parchment back so Hob won’t get into trouble.’

  But to my surprise, Hob shook his head. ‘Nay,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If it be magical you’d best keep it to hand.’

  ‘What will your Pa say?’ Rich objected.

  Hob shrugged. ‘I’ll cross that ford when I find it … and mayhap that will be never. Moons go by without Pa opening that cabinet, and I’ll wager he don’t know all that’s inside it.’

  ‘That’s the other thing,’ said Jamie awkwardly. ‘We don’t have any money — we can’t pay you for it.’

  Hob waved his hand airily. ‘It ain’t mine to sell,’ he grinned. ‘Take it, and good fortune go with it.’

  But Jamie was fumbling in his backpack. ‘You’ve been such a help, Hob. We’d like to give you this, to say thank you.’

  He held out his hand. In his palm was the pocketknife Q had given him.

  We each had one — real top-of-the-range red Swiss army knives, with about five different blades, tweezers, a file, a corkscrew, a hoof pick, and even a pair of miniature scissors. I’d never had anything so cool in my life — and Jamie was giving his away.

  By the look on Hob’s face as he pulled the blades out one by one and tested them on his thumb, he’d never see anything like it either. ‘By Zephyr, this be tempered and honed!’ he breathed reverently. ‘Be you sure, Jamie?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ grinned Jamie.

  Kai stood silently in the shadows, watching his friend. There was a tiny smile on his mouth, but something in his eyes … Without thinking, I shrugged off my backpack and dug inside. There,
under the warm, furry form of Tiger Lily, I found my knife. I pressed it into Kai’s hand. ‘One for you, too, Kai,’ I told him with a grin. ‘A token of friendship. From the distant city of Winterton to Arakesh: friends forever.’

  ‘Friends forever,’ Kai echoed, his eyes shining.

  Hob gave us two thick, creamy sheets of blank parchment to protect the precious poem, and Kenta rolled them gingerly into a scroll, and slid it into her rucksack. We’d agreed the temple seemed the logical place to start our search — the plan was to head straight there, and hope the parchment would start to make more sense along the way.

  Hob stood forlornly at the door of Second Sight and watched us head away into the bright sunlight. But as the six of us set off down the cobbled lane, the sound of a bell stopped Kai in his tracks.

  It was the same bell I’d heard when I’d been standing under the cliff the first time I’d come to Karazan. Then it had been a distant echo, almost inaudible; now it rang through the streets like a gong, a single chime that sent the speckled birds fluttering up to the roofs of the houses, and had Kai glancing up at the sun.

  He pulled a rueful face. ‘Well, there ain’t no point going to the temple now,’ he told us. ‘That be the noon bell. It rings once at daybreak, to mark the start of the working day and the opening of the temple, and once at midday, to signal its closing. And as for me, Pa will tan my hide if I’m not back at the inn to help him and Ma with the midday meal.’

  The others looked at one another, aghast. ‘Does that really mean we must wait another day?’ asked Gen. ‘Is there no other way?’

  Kai shook his head regretfully. I was relieved, though I didn’t say so. Digging in my pack had disturbed Tiger Lily, and I could feel her lurching round inside looking for a way out. The last thing we needed was to have her gallivanting round the Sacred Temple of Arakesh, causing havoc and drawing attention to us. Plus, I was keen to have another good look at the parchment, read the poem over again, and see whether together we could figure out what it meant.

  Also, I was starving.

  So when Kai remarked that the sun would rise again tomorrow, he was echoing my thoughts. We were walking together through the winding streets in what I hoped was the direction of the gate when suddenly I felt Gen’s hand on my arm. ‘Adam,’ she whispered, ‘I just saw another of those beggars disappear round that corner behind us. You don’t think … it’s just … I’ve had a thought I can’t seem to shake. You don’t suppose it could be the same beggar, do you? And that maybe … he’s following us?’ Crazy as her suggestion was, it sent an unpleasant trickle down my spine. Quickly, I glanced behind us, but the street was deserted.

  ‘Nah, Gen, you’re just being paranoid,’ I told her reassuringly. ‘They all look the same, don’t they, Kai?’

  Kai, who’d been examining the corkscrew on his pocketknife with a puzzled air, glanced up with a questioning smile at the sound of his name.

  ‘Gen was worried about those beggars in the grey cloaks,’ I explained. ‘We keep seeing them lurking around, and she’s got this weird idea …’

  Kai’s face changed as abruptly as if I’d flicked a switch. Suddenly, he didn’t look relaxed and friendly — he looked wary, narrow-eyed … afraid. Without a word, he pulled us all back into the doorway of the nearest building.

  ‘How many times have you seen them since you entered the city?’ he hissed urgently.

  Gen’s eyes were like saucers in her white face. ‘I don’t know … maybe … a dozen or so?’ she quavered.

  ‘A dozen? You came through the main gate? The eastern gate?’ I nodded. ‘The guards — they flung a coin as you passed?’ I nodded again, blankly. ‘Then they are watching you. The grey-cloaked ones are not beggars. They are the Followers — the Faceless. And — oh, Zephyr! — they will have seen it all.’ He was talking almost to himself now, in a low mutter, his eyes raking the empty street. ‘The force-back — that, and a visit to Hob: innocent enough … and they have not been near enough to overhear us. They cannot know of the parchment. I pray they do not. Aye, they may know nothing as yet … but who can tell when they will close in? And if they find it …’

  My blood had turned to ice. ‘Can’t we just go back to the gate, and out into the forest again?’ Kenta whispered, her face stricken.

  ‘Nay — they will never let you leave. Even now, their numbers will be gathering and the net closing in. Hush — let me think!’

  It was only a moment before he spoke again, low and urgently. ‘Follow me. They may not realise you have seen them, or that you know … what they are. Walk slowly, and talk comfortably among yourselves. Be calm, for they will smell your fear. And above all, be ready — when I run, follow me closely, for your souls depend upon it.’

  With elaborate casualness, we left the shelter of the doorway. Kai led us to the right, in the opposite direction from Hob’s shop, and away from the gate. I was sure we weren’t fooling anyone — even I could see our little group was huddled unnaturally close together. And try as I might, I couldn’t think of a single word to say to any of the others. In tense silence we walked on, as slowly as we could bring ourselves to. My back prickled and it took a huge effort of will not to scan every alley we passed for signs of the Faceless.

  At last we turned down a narrow lane, unpaved and in deep shadow. It ran between the sides of two buildings, which almost met overhead. It was dark and dank, and smelled of pee. ‘Now — run!’

  Instantly we were off, hurtling towards the distant corner, Kai in the lead, me taking up the rear. Jamie was just in front of me — I was almost treading on his heels. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to overtake him, but his fat legs were pumping like pistons — he was doing the best he could, and there was no way I was leaving him.

  As we reached the bend, I risked a quick glance behind — and my heart lurched in my throat. Two — no, three — grey shapes were pursuing us down the alleyway in utter silence, and with terrifying speed. Without thinking, I grabbed Jamie’s hand — there was barely room for us to run abreast — and shoved ahead, dragging him behind.

  ‘Oh, Mum, oh, Dad, please help me, please don’t let this be real, please don’t let this be happening …’

  ‘Shut up, Jamie! Use your breath to run!’

  The others were a couple of metres ahead now … and then I saw to my horror we were running full tilt towards a dead end. It couldn’t be! But no — the wall didn’t reach right to the roof: there was a narrow gap just below the tiles. Kai reached the wall and with a kick and a scrabble he was up, stretching down to grasp Gen’s hands. A heave and a shove from Rich, and she was over. I skidded to a halt at the foot of the wall, grabbed Rich round the middle and heaved. He weighed a ton. Kai had hold of his wrists now, and was pulling with all his might. ‘Jump, Rich — help us!’ He jumped, and with a final shove, he was over and gone.

  I turned on Jamie. His face was bright red and slick with sweat and tears and snot, his breath rasping in his throat like a hacksaw. ‘I can’t! I can’t!’ he wailed.

  ‘You have to,’ I snarled through clenched teeth. ‘Try!’

  His lip quivered but he reached two plump, trembling arms up to Kai. I spread both hands on his ample bum, and gave him a boost that would’ve done credit to a space shuttle. He shot over the wall like a cork from a bottle. Without even asking, I grabbed Kenta round the waist and tossed her after him — she was as light as thistledown.

  Without looking back, I jumped, and felt my hands grip the top of the stone wall. Kai swung down onto the other side. I gave a heave and a wriggle, and was astride the wall in a second. One quick look back down the alley — and my blood froze. They were so close I could hear their snuffling breath. I swung my leg over, ready to drop to the other side … my breeches caught on a nail, and I felt them rip as I fell to the ground.

  We were in a small courtyard full of old timber and broken tiles — and I could see daylight through a gap up ahead. ‘Come on — let’s go!’

  But Kai stood as if he’d turned
to stone, gaping at me with his mouth open. Gaping down at my thigh and the rip in my breeches. ‘Come on — don’t stand there! They’re right behind us!’

  But instinctively I glanced down … and through the jagged hole I could clearly see my boxers — my shiny, wine-red satin boxers.

  My stomach turned over. But there was no time for that now — no time for anything. I gave Kai a rough shove. ‘Go, Kai — run!’

  He spun, and raced after the others towards the gap. I risked one final glance up at the wall. A hooded head stared back at me. It was so close that for a second I thought I glimpsed what lay in the deep shadow of the hood — a misshapen lump swathed in strips of stained cloth: damp-looking, seeping, pinkish-grey. The creature hissed as my eye fell on it — I had a sudden, vivid flash of long ago in the bush above Highgate, when I’d come across a dead sheep, crawling with maggots. The stench was the same. Gagging, I wheeled and stumbled away, one hand clamped over the tear in my pants … and as I fled, I heard a single rattling gargle of rage.

  We pelted through the narrow gap into a deserted street, past a row of derelict houses and down another alley, which led out into a marketplace. Stalls and open carts and wagons lined the street. Wares were laid out on the ground and on trestle tables, and there were people everywhere. Kai skidded to a halt, with a quick glance behind to check that we were following, then wove through the crowds as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself. We straggled after him, chests heaving and hearts hammering, ducking between the people and praying we wouldn’t be noticed.

  Kai cut abruptly down a paved sidestreet, with another quick glance over his shoulder. We were close to the city wall now and he broke into a trot. Jamie groaned, clutching his side, and stumbled into a limping jog. Another twist, and Kai ducked through an arched entranceway into a cobbled courtyard strewn with wisps of hay and spattered with dried dung. It was deserted. With the five of us panting behind him, Kai made for the tall wooden doors at the far end, and disappeared inside.