by Darren Shan
When the vampires had settled back into their seats, Vanez escorted me up to the platform.
"Congratulations on passing the first of your Trials, Darren," Paris said.
"Thank you," I replied politely.
"As one who never learned to swim, I have extra reason to admire your narrow escape," said Arrow, the large, bald Prince, with tattoos of arrows on his arms and head. "Had I found myself in your position, I wouldn't have made it out alive."
"You did well, young Shan," Mika Ver Leth agreed. "A good start is half the battle. There's a long way to go, but I'm willing to accept that I might have been wrong about you."
"We would hear about more of your exploits in the maze if we had the time," Paris sighed, "but, alas, that is a tale you must save for another occasion. Are you ready to choose your next Trial?"
"I am."
The bag of numbered stones was produced. After they'd been checked, I reached in, dug down, and picked one close to the bottom. "Number twenty-three," the guard called out, having examined the stone. "The Path of Needles."
"I thought there were only seventeen Trials," I muttered to Vanez as the stone was taken to the Princes.
"Seventeen for you," he agreed, "but there are more than sixty in total. A lot have been omitted because they're not currently possible to host — like the pit of snakes — and others have been left out because of your size and age."
"Is it a difficult Trial?" I asked.
"It's easier than the Aquatic Maze," he said. "And your size will help. It's as good as any we could have hoped for."
The Princes examined the stone, announced their approval, then set it aside and wished me well. They'd treated me rather curtly, but I understood their distraction and didn't feel slighted. As Vanez and I left, I heard the arguments about the vampaneze kick into life again, and the thick air of tension in the Hall was almost as suffocating as the water in the Aquatic Maze had been.
CHAPTER SIX
THE PATH of Needles was a long, narrow cavern filled with sharp-tipped stalactites and stalagmites. Vanez took me to see it before we set off to practice in another cave.
"All I have to do is walk across?" I asked.
"That's all."
"It isn't much of a Trial, is it?" I said confidently.
"We'll see if you think the same way tomorrow," he grunted. "The stalagmites are slippery — one wrong move and you can impale yourself in the flicker of an eye. And many of the stalactites are precariously perched, hanging by a thread. Any sudden noise will result in some falling. If one hits you on the way down, it can cut clean through you."
Despite his warning, I still felt it was going to be easy. But by the end of our first practice session, I'd changed my mind.
We practiced in a cave where the stalagmites weren't as sharp or as slippery as those on the Path of Needles, where the stalactites wouldn't break off and fall without warning. Yet, mild as this cave was in comparison, I came close to spearing myself several times, rescued only by the quick hands of Vanez Blane.
"You're not gripping hard enough!" he growled after I'd almost gouged an eye out. I'd scratched my cheek on the stalagmite, and Vanez was applying spit to the cut, to stop the flow of blood (as a half-vampire, my spit was no good for closing cuts).
"It's like trying to hold on to a buttered pole," I grumbled.
"That's why you must grip harder."
"But it hurts. I'll cut my hands to shreds if I —"
"Which would you rather?" Vanez interrupted. "Bloody hands or a stalagmite through your heart?"
"That's a stupid question," I groaned.
"Then stop acting stupidly!" he snapped. "You'll cut your palms to ribbons on the Path of Needles — there's no way to avoid that. You're a half-vampire, so the flesh will grow back quickly. You have to ignore the pain and focus on your grip. There will be plenty of time after the Trial to moan about your poor little fingers and how you'll never play the piano again."
"I can't play the piano anyway," I huffed, but did as he ordered and took a firmer grip on the treacherous mineral stakes.
At the end of the session, Vanez applied special herbs and leaves to my hands, to ease the worst of the pain and toughen up my palms for the ordeal ahead. It felt for a while as though my fingers were on fire, but gradually the pain seeped away, and by the time I had to report back for my second bout of training, it was just a dull throb at the end of my arms.
We concentrated on stealth this time. Vanez taught me to check each stalagmite before transferring my weight onto it. If one snapped off in the cave, it could send me plummeting to my death, or the sound could result in falling stalactites, which were just as hazardous.
"Keep one eye on the ceiling," Vanez said. "Most falling stalactites can be avoided by simply twisting out of the way."
"What if they can't be avoided?" I asked.
"Then you're in trouble. If one's coming for you and can't be dodged, you have to knock it sideways or catch it. Catching is harder but preferable — if you knock a stalactite out of the way, it'll crash and shatter. That sort of noise can bring the roof down."
"I thought you said this was going to be easier than the Aquatic Maze," I complained.
"It is," he assured me. "You need lots of luck to make it out of the Aquatic Maze. On the Path of Needles, you can exert more control over your fate — your life's in your own hands."
Arra Sails turned up during our third practice session, to help me work on my balance. She blindfolded me and made me crawl over a series of blunt stalagmites, so that I learned to maneuver by touch alone. "He has an excellent sense of balance," she noted to Vanez. "As long as he doesn't flinch from the pain in his hands, he should sail through this test."
Finally, after many hours of practice, Vanez sent me back to my cell to grab some shut-eye. Once again he'd worked me just the right amount. Tired, bruised, and cut though I was, after a few hours in my hammock I felt as good as new and ready for anything.
There were hardly any vampires present at the Path of Needles to observe my second Trial. Most were locked away in the Hall of Princes, or had gathered in one of the mountain's many meeting chambers, to discuss the vampaneze. Mr. Crepsley turned out to cheer me on, and so did Gavner Purl and Seba Nile. But Harkat was the only other familiar face in the tiny crowd of well-wishers.
A guard told me that the Princes sent their apologies, but they couldn't preside over the Trial. Vanez complained — he said the Trial should be delayed if a Prince wasn't present — but the guard cited a couple of past cases where Princes hadn't been able to attend Trials, which had gone ahead without them. Vanez asked me if I wanted to push the point — he said, if we created a fuss, we could probably persuade the Princes to postpone the Trial for a night or two, till one of them had time to come down and watch — but I said I'd rather get it over with.
The guard who'd been sent by the Princes checked to make sure I knew what I had to do, wished me luck, guided me to the mouth of the Path of Needles, and set me loose.
I climbed up onto the first of the stalagmites and stared at the sea and sky of glinting spikes. The cavern was well named — from this point it looked precisely like a pathway built of needles. Suppressing a shiver, I started ahead at a snail's crawl. There was no rushing on the Path of Needles. To survive, you had to move slowly and surely. I tested each stalagmite before choosing it, shaking it gently from side to side, making sure it would hold my weight.
Bringing up my legs was tricky. There was no way to grip the tips of the stalagmites with my toes, so I had to place my feet lower down, sometimes wedging them between two stalagmites. While this gave me a chance to take the weight off my arms and hands, it resulted in lots of scratching to my knees and thighs when it came time to drag my legs forward.
It was worst in the spots where the stalactites hung low over the stalagmites. There, I had to stretch out, so that I was lying almost flat on the stalagmites, in order to wriggle ahead. I picked up many nasty cuts to my chest, belly, and back.
After a while I found myself envying those fabulous Indian fakirs who can train themselves to lie on a bed of nails!
About a fifth of the way in, my left leg slipped and banged loudly against one of the stalagmites. There was a trembling, tingling sound overhead. Glancing up, I saw several nearby stalactites shaking. For a couple of seconds it seemed as if they weren't going to fall, but then one snapped free and shattered on the ground. The noise of that shook others loose, and suddenly stalactites were dropping like nail bombs all around me.
I didn't panic. Thankfully, hardly any of the stalactites fell close enough to damage me. One would have cut my right arm in two if I hadn't spotted it and shifted out of the way, and I had to suck my gut in quickly to avoid a small but sharp stalactite from ripping a new belly button in my middle. But otherwise I stayed perched where I was, watching the ceiling closely for signs of danger, and waited out the avalanche.
Eventually the stalactites stopped falling, and the echoes of their shattering died away. I waited a minute, for fear of late droppers — Vanez had warned me about those — but when all looked safe I proceeded at my same cautious pace.
The falling stalactites had taken my mind off my torn, pricked body. Adrenaline had surged through me when I saw the shower of lethal needles, and I was temporarily immune to pain. Sensation returned the farther I progressed, but I remained numb to most of the cuts, only wincing every now and then when an especially sharp point bit deeper into my flesh than usual.
I got a good grip with my feet at the halfway point and rested for five or six minutes. The ceiling was high here, so I was able to stand up and rotate my arms and neck, working some of the stiffness out of my muscles.
It was hot and I was sweating like crazy. I was wearing a tight leather outfit, which made me sweat even worse but which was necessary — loose clothes would have snagged on the stalactites.
Many vampires wore no clothes when going through the Path of Needles, but although I hadn't minded stripping to get through a valley full of sharp thorns on the way to Vampire Mountain, I wasn't about to take my clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers!
I wiped my hands on my pants, but they were so stained with blood by this point that my hands became slippier than they'd been before. Looking around, I found a few pockets of dirt and used the dust to dry my palms. The dirt got in under my torn flesh and stung as if I'd grabbed two fistfuls of prickers, but the pain subsided after a while and I was ready to continue.
I was making good time and had passed the three-quarters point when I made my first real mistake. Though the ceiling was high in this part of the cavern, the stalagmites grew close together, and I had to stretch out to crawl over them. The tips were digging into my belly and chest, so I picked up speed, anxious to clear the vicious cluster.
Reaching ahead with my left hand, I tested a large stalagmite, but only slightly — it was so big, I felt sure it would support me. As I shifted my weight onto it, there was a sharp cracking sound, and the tip broke away in my hand. I realized immediately what was happening and tried retreating, but it was too late. My weight had snapped the tip clean off, and my body dipped, slamming into a few neighboring stalagmites.
The noise wasn't especially loud, but it built like thunder, and I could hear familiar tingling sounds overhead. Easing my head around, I glued my eyes to the ceiling and watched as several small stalactites fell and smashed. They didn't bother me — even if they'd been on target, they couldn't have done much harm — but the enormous stalactite directly above caused my guts to shrivel in fearful anticipation. For a while it looked like I was safe — the initial noise didn't even make the stalactite quiver — but, as smaller stalactites dropped and exploded, the larger one began to shake, gently at first, then alarmingly.
I tried scurrying out of its way, but I was snagged on the stalagmites. It would take a few seconds to free myself. I half rolled over, creating room to maneuver. I was staring up at the stalactite, judging how long I had to wriggle clear, when I thought about the stalactites around it. If the big one fell and smashed, the vibrations would bring pretty much every stalactite in this part of the cavern down on top of me!
While I was considering the problem and trying to figure a way out of it, the large stalactite snapped abruptly in the middle, and the lower half dropped upon me in a rush, its pin-sharp tip directed like an arrow at the soft flesh of my belly — it was going to go right through me!
CHAPTER SEVEN
I HAS A SPLIT SECOND to think and react. For a human, it would have been all over. As a half-vampire, I stood a chance. Wriggling out of the way was impossible — no time — so I flopped onto my back, bracing myself against the flat rim of the stalagmite whose tip I'd broken off. Letting go of the stalagmites around me, ignoring the pain as a dozen sharp tips dug into me, I raised my hands above my body and grabbed for the dropping stalactite.
I caught it in midair, several inches above the tip. It slid down through my hands, shedding tiny silver splinters all along the flesh of my palms. I had to bite down hard on my tongue to hold an agonized yell inside.
Ignoring the pain, I pressed my hands closer together, gripping the stalactite as tightly as I could, and the tip came to a stop a couple of inches above my belly. The muscles in my arms creaked at the effort it took to stop and hold the heavy piece of stalactite, but didn't let me down.
Gently, with trembling arms, I laid the stalactite to one side, careful not to make any noise, then lifted myself off the stalagmites and blew on my bleeding palms, the lines of which had been severed in dozens of places by the sharp sides of the stake. By the luck of the vampires, none of my fingers had been amputated, but that was the only thing I had to feel grateful for.
The rest of my body had been similarly lacerated. I felt like I'd been stabbed all over. Blood was flowing freely from my back, arms, and legs, and I could feel a deep impression in the skin of my lower back, where the rim of the big stalagmite had cut into me. But I was alive!
I took my time going over the rest of the sharp cluster, hard as it was. Once clear, I paused, wiped the blood from my hands, licked my fingers, and rubbed spit into the worst of my wounds. I wasn't able to close cuts like full-vampires could, but the damp saliva eased some of the pain. A few sorry tears crept down my cheeks, but I knew self-pity would get me nowhere, so I wiped them away and told myself to concentrate — I wasn't out of the cavern yet.
I thought about taking off my top and ripping it to pieces, wrapping the strips around my hands to give me a firmer grip. But that would have been cheating, and the vampire blood in me boiled angrily at the suggestion. Instead, I found more pockets of dirt and used them to dry my blood-stained palms and fingers. I also rubbed lots of dirt into my feet and lower legs, which were slippery with blood that had dripped from my hands.
After a short rest, I continued. It wasn't so hard on this side of the cluster, but I was in such bad shape that it seemed difficult. I proceeded slowly, testing each stalagmite more thoroughly than necessary, taking no chances at all.
Finally, after more than an hour and a half on the Path of Needles — most vampires made it across in less than forty minutes — I crawled out, to be warmly greeted by the few vampires who'd gathered to cheer my success.
"Well?" Vanez asked, throwing a roughly woven towel around my shoulders. "Still think it isn't much of a Trial?"
I glowered at the games master. "If I ever say such a stupid thing again," I told him, "cut out my tongue and sew my lips closed!"
"Come on," he laughed. "We'll wash off that blood and dirt, then get busy with the balms and bandages."
Supported by Vanez and Mr. Crepsley, I hobbled away from the Path of Needles and said a silent prayer that the next Trial would have nothing to do with cramped caverns and razor-sharp obstacles. If I'd known how my prayer was going to be answered, I wouldn't have bothered!
As it turned out, I didn't have to worry about my next Trial immediately. While I was showering under an icy-cold waterfall in the Hall of
Perta Vin-Grahl, word reached us that the final vampire had arrived at the mountain, which meant the Festival of the Undead would begin at the end of the next day, with the setting of the sun.
"There!" Vanez beamed. "Three nights and days to drink, be merry, recover, and relax. Things couldn't have worked out better if we'd planned them."
"I don't know," I groaned, using my fingernails to dig dirt out of the cuts in my legs and feet. "I think I'll need a couple of weeks — at least!"
"Nonsense," Vanez said. "A few nights and you'll be good as new. A little scarred and scratched, but nothing that will work against you in the later Trials."
"Will I have my extra allotted day to prepare for the Trial, on top of the three days allowed for the Festival?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "There can be no official business during the Festival of the Undead. It's a time for rest and games and the swapping of old tales. Even the subject of the vampaneze must be put on ice for the next three nights and days.
"I've been looking forward to this for months," Vanez said, rubbing his hands together. "As a games master, I can have nothing to do with organizing or overseeing games during the Festival — so I can cut loose and really enjoy myself, without having to worry about what others are getting up to."
"Can you take part in the games with just one eye?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied. "There are a few which require the use of both, but most don't. Wait and see — I'll crack many a head before the final ceremonies of the Festival. Dozens of vampires are going to leave the Council cursing my name and the night they crossed me."