“Snaky’s in a terrible mess!” Tuntuni sang. “Sewn up by a royal seamstress!”
It was like being on a bucking bronco ride at a cheesy Western-themed restaurant. The snake bumped up and down, left to right, trying to shake off the ropes that pinned it to the cavern ceiling. As it fought, the ropes actually started to give way.
Oh no.
Pop.
The snake managed to yank one of my arrows from the ceiling. The weapon dangled, harmless, from the rope still around the serpent’s neck.
“Hurry, Neel!” I yelled. “I don’t know how long these things are gonna hold it!”
Pop. Another arrow gone.
Neel struggled through the mud over to the python jewel. Being Mr. Demonic Dude, it was a lot easier for him than it had been for me. But even still, would he make it in time? The python had just yanked out two of my special arrows from the ceiling. I felt back to my quiver. I only had one roped arrow left. Did I want to use it? Would it make a difference? I threaded it into my bow, aiming at the ceiling.
Pop. Pop. Pop. The snake was almost entirely free of the confining ropes now.
In the meantime, Neel reached the jewel. Rather than just picking it up and running, as had been our original plan, he kicked mud from the cavern floor over the jewel’s shining surface. As he kept doing that, the room darkened. My heart started to speed up. I’d found the courage from who knows where to ride an enchanted snake like it was some kind of horse, but there was no way I could face doing that in the dark. If I’d had the energy, I would have yelled at Neel to stop, but it was all I could do at this point just to hang on to the thrashing serpent.
In the graying light, I saw Neel bury the hilt of his sword deep into the mud in front of the jewel, its point facing up.
He shouted, “On my count, do a Tarzan!”
A Tarzan?
“One … two …”
Right, a Tarzan. Underneath me, the python tore the last remaining rope out of the ceiling. The ropes and arrows hung from its neck like some kind of weird necklace, but they certainly weren’t doing anything more to slow it down.
I shot my last special arrow into the ceiling and hoisted myself up the rope and off the snake. It took all my remaining strength. I hung there, thirty feet off the ground, my muscles trembling.
“Three …” And with that, Neel kicked a clump of mud over the remaining part of the jewel, dousing its emanating light.
The cavern was an inky black. The darkness was filled with the rancid smell of snake—or it might have been the smell of my own fear. I started to panic, squeezing my eyes shut so hard I saw stars. But at least it was a familiar darkness, as opposed to the blackness outside them. Holy serpent poop. My hands were so sweaty, I was slipping down the rope. For the zillionth time in the last few days, I was going to plummet to my death. It seemed like a recurring theme at this point.
Then I heard Neel’s familiar voice cut through the darkness like a lifeline. “Hey, slimeball, where’s your precious python jewel?”
The serpent hissed and slithered away from me. I heard it move down to the other end of the underwater cave.
My grip was slipping, but I desperately hung on. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see my parents again. I wanted to hang out with Zuzu again. I even wanted to argue with Neel again.
Then the cavern was filled with a wailing as the snake, searching for its jewel, found instead the point of Neel’s sword. The cries were horrible—high-pitched and almost human. There was a thrashing sound like a giant drum being beaten on the ground. But in a few minutes, all was silent.
As quickly as there had been darkness, there was light. Neel cleaned some of the dirt from the jewel’s surface, allowing it to shine once more like an unnatural, underground sun. I’d never been so happy to see.
The python’s giant body lay still, oozing dark blood on the cavern floor. Trying to reach its jewel, it had instead split itself in two on Neel’s sword. Neither of us had been strong enough to harm it, but it was strong enough to kill itself.
I breathed a very long sigh of relief, and slid down my rope. Unfortunately, it stopped what felt like a bazillion miles too short of the ground.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
Neel, now holding the muddy python jewel, was standing under where I hung.
“Let go,” he said.
I shook my head, unable to move.
“Come on,” Neel coaxed. “You’ve got to trust me. Like it or not, we’re in this together.”
Did I trust Neel? It was hard to say. One moment I felt like strangling him, the next, one of us was saving the other’s life. At the very least, until we rescued our families, we were partners. And I guess that deserved some trust.
“I suppose we half monsters have got to stick together.”
We had a lot in common, Neel and I, even if I didn’t like to admit it.
I let go. It wasn’t like one of those scenes in a movie, where the princess floats lightly into the waiting hero’s arms. I was more like an anvil that comes plummeting down on a cartoon character’s head. I fell, like a graceful barbell, right on top of Neel.
Squelch. We both sank even farther into the mud.
“You did ask for it.” I swiped some silt from my face.
“Yeah.” Neel grinned through the dirt. “I guess I did.”
Unfortunately, the muddy moment was shattered by the sound of a terrible hissing that sent shivers up my spine far worse than any darkness.
“Welcome home,” seven voices hissed, “Sssissster.”
The seven-headed cobra towered above us, bobbing and swaying. His scaly green skin shimmered in the light of the python jewel, which was now knotted into its muscular tail. Dimmer lights shone from each of seven smaller jewels sitting on each of its seven heads. As it danced its twisting dance, I saw reflected, seven times over, the same U-shaped marking on my upper arm. Like two cruel eyes that had been staring at me my whole life.
It was terrifying and horrible and a bit fascinating all at the same time.
When I heard the story of the moon maiden’s seven stolen sons from “Danavi,” somehow I assumed that my seven brothers were turned into seven snakes. Now I realized they were each of seven heads attached to one powerful serpent body.
The magic snake hissed as I moved right. It flicked out its seven forked tongues as Neel moved left. With a hissing and a bumping, it forced us both to walk straight ahead. And in this way, my brothers escorted us, none too politely, out of the cavern and into the Serpent King’s throne room.
“A plan,” Neel muttered as we shuffled side by side, shoved along by the seven-headed snake. “We need a getaway plan. Like right now.”
“What do we do?”
“I’m thinking. I’m thinking.” Neel’s voice was desperate. “I don’t suppose you have any good ideas?”
“If I did, would I be asking you?”
Tuntuni, for once, was unable to speak. He shook like a—well—like a feather in my arms.
Not that he didn’t have good reasons. After the emptiness of the jewel cavern, the throne room was a shock. It positively writhed with snakes. Snakes carpeted the floors, hung from the ceilings, wrapped around the pillars, and decorated the light fixtures. Even the enormous throne at the end of the room was made of writhing, hissing, green, black, yellow, and brown serpent bodies.
And among all those slithering snakes, hundreds of jewels of all shapes and sizes. Each serpent seemed to be protecting one. None were as big as the python jewel that the seven-headed cobra had taken from us, but the serpents were hoarding untold riches down here in their underwater kingdom.
Almost in unison, they all bared their fangs as we entered the room.
“Frightened, Sssissster?” the cobra’s seven heads hissed as one. “You shhhould be!”
I’d just come face-to-face for the first time with my brothers—well, what used to be my brothers anyway. I hadn’t thought much about them, but assumed that when I saw them, I would feel some sor
t of sibling connection. Instead, all I felt was revulsion. And fear. The cobra didn’t seem to hold too much brotherly love for me either. With a hiss, it pushed us again toward the throne.
“Father, ssseee what I have brought you!” I could clearly hear the eagerness to impress the king in all seven of those voices.
We had no choice but to move forward. My seven-headed band of brothers were baring their fangs right behind us.
But so too were the serpents in front of us. They slithered forward, hissing, winding themselves around our arms and legs, hanging over our heads from the ceiling. It was like a horrible nightmare. At first I tried not to scream as I felt their cold skin slip across mine—but soon I couldn’t control myself. Slip—a snake was climbing up my shin. Squeeze—another wrapped itself across my chest like a purse strap. I couldn’t even see Neel anymore—my vision was entirely blocked by writhing serpents. I thought of Baba and how he had tried to protect me from this. I shut my eyes, trying to imagine myself a little girl again, safe and secure in my father’s arms.
A familiar voice screamed and screamed. It took me a couple of moments to realize it was my own.
After what seemed like hours but must have been minutes, a voice commanded from the end of the room, “Serpents begone! Make a path, and bring them to me!”
The snakes unwound themselves from our bodies. Even the ones in front of us wiggled away, making a clear path from where we stood to the throne.
My skin felt slimy and clammy. I felt shaken and bruised. I shuddered as the seven-headed snake pushed me forward again.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled brokenly to Neel. He reached out and held my damp hand in his own. The warmth of his skin took a small edge off my fear.
“For what?” he breathed.
We walked forward as slowly as we could toward the snake throne.
“He’s my dad. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me.”
“Not true. We needed to find that python jewel.”
“Well, I’m sorry anyway.”
“It’s not your fault,” Neel muttered. “He’s your dark matter.”
“My what?” I asked, but we were in front of the throne by then and the Serpent King’s green eyes flashed.
“Silence!” he bellowed. I dropped Neel’s hand. Tuni cowered on my shoulder somewhere near my ear.
“I see you have met my son Naga,” the Serpent King hissed. “I am Sesha, King of the Serpents, guardian of the primordial ocean of divine nectar, keeper of time.”
My skin broke out in goose bumps. My mouth felt dry. This was my biological father, at last. The Serpent King had a human form: dark hair tinged with gray, shimmering green clothes, a crown made of serpent’s teeth, a handsome but cruel face. Was there any similarity there to mine? I searched but couldn’t see it.
“Welcome to the Palace of Desires,” the Serpent King hissed. Beside his writhing throne of snakes were urns of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. He ran his hands through these as he talked, letting the jewels fall back through his fingers. “Do you see anything that pleases you?”
His green eyes glowed in my direction, and I could feel their almost physical pull. Here he was, not five feet away. My father. And he wanted me back; he wanted me to join him. What was wrong with that? That was only natural, wasn’t it? I had a swimming, goofy sensation, like I was filled with the golden honey that Mati had been feeding the pakkhiraj horses. I felt the nectar swimming through my blood. My father wanted me back. And I would go.
I swayed, my eyes half hooded, as if in a trance.
Until I felt a sharp peck on my neck, that is.
“Princess, don’t look directly at him. Still your mind. Don’t believe the sweet lies he’s feeding you,” Tuntuni squawked.
“Silence!” the Serpent King snarled, waking me out of my trancelike state. I stared at the floor, my mind racing. I could still feel my father’s pull, though. Was it magic, something about his personality, or just our shared history? I couldn’t tell but I couldn’t trust myself to resist him either.
“If she is the one, it is fate that has brought her back to me.” I could feel more than see the Serpent King’s green eyes were boring into me. “She will be a valuable weapon in the coming war.”
“Yesss, Father,” Naga agreed in his multiple voices.
My heart was a mess of contradictions. I was afraid. I didn’t want to be turned into a snake, or a weapon, or to stay in this underground reptile zoo for a minute longer. On the other hand, it was hard not to feel the power of finding my birth father. Then, like a wave, the guilt washed over me. How could I be thinking of this monster as my father when my own dear Baba was still missing?
“She has my mark on her arm,” the Serpent King hissed, “but what makes you so sure she is the one?”
“Shhhe bearsss this mark alssso, Father!” The seven-headed serpent pushed me to my knees.
“Hey!” Neel protested.
The cobra’s tail pushed my head down, revealing the moon-shaped scar on the back of my neck. The Serpent King’s laugh boomed through the cavern.
“So, it’s true. You are the brat my queen hid away. And now you’ve come back—to steal from your poor old father?” His voice was mocking. I was pretty sure Sesha didn’t think he was either poor or old.
Neel helped me to my feet. My legs were like jelly.
“I am Kiranmala.” I held my head up, hoping the trembling in my lips wasn’t too obvious.
For a second, I thought the Serpent King smiled. But his expression remained cruel.
“And who are you, young rakkhosh?” he asked. “What do you want with my”—he paused—“filthy little offspring?”
“I’m, er, friends with your, erm, daughter. Uh, sir,” Neel stammered, sounding more like he was addressing a friend’s dad at after-school carpool than a mortal enemy. Maybe he was feeling the Serpent King’s strange power too.
“Silence!” Sesha shouted. “This puny imp is my blood? I can hardly believe it.” He sneered, his upper lip curling in an ugly way.
I was rooted to the spot. This was way more awful than I thought it would be. How could I ever have thought I might have anything in common with such a horrible father?
“Just like your mother,” he continued, “so soft and weak and moony.”
My throat constricted, but I pushed down the tears. Part of me refused to blubber in front of this monster. But truth be told, another part of me didn’t want to disappoint my father.
“You will thank me.” The Serpent King raised his arms above his head. “You will thank me for sparing you from a life of drudgery and giving birth to your inner glory!”
I hid my eyes. I could feel his green gaze boring into me again, and that pull, like some kind of a magical rope between us. Like he had shot me with an invisible arrow attached to a string and all he had to do was reel me in.
“Join me!” the King thundered, a blinding green light building between his hands.
“No!” Neel shouted, as if forcing himself to resist Sesha’s magic. “I kind of like her the way she is.” He pulled out his sword, which flashed in the light of the Serpent King’s glowing energy.
But Naga pushed Neel to the ground, looming and hissing above him.
“Stop!” I cried, reaching for my bow.
None of us noticed that Tuntuni had flown out of my arms while the King talked. Now he flew up, flapped his wings in Sesha’s face, and then snatched something out of Neel’s shirt pocket.
It was the shadow seller’s purple vial with the cork top.
“Tuntuni, wait …” Neel began. But with one swift gesture, the bird smashed the vial to bits at the feet of the Snake King. There was a tinkling of broken glass, but beyond that, nothing happened.
We all stared at the broken bottle like participants in a strange wax-museum tableau. The king, the bird, the prodigal daughter, the looming serpent, and his princely prey.
Sesha was the first to break out of the expectant trance.
“Ha!
” The Serpent King’s moustache twitched as he laughed. “I haven’t been that amused in a long time!”
But then a thick gray smoke swirled out of the shattered glass. It wrapped itself like a never-ending sari around the throne room, circling the pillars, weaving through the furniture, threading its wispy form above and below the throne. It wrapped us, the snakes, everything in its expanding folds.
“Hang on, y’all, here it comes!” Tuntuni chirped.
“Here what comes?” I eyed the growing mist.
“Just don’t let go!” Neel grabbed me with one hand, the bird with his other.
An earthquake-like rumbling shook the teeth in my head. The snakes hissed and slithered around in panic. Then enormous roots shot out of every nook and cranny of the throne room, breaking right through the snake pillars and snake chandeliers, the snake tables and snake throne chair. From the roots, a sturdy trunk exploded like a rocket toward the sky.
“Father! The sssky isss falling!” Naga shrieked.
And it was. The banyan tree shadow, which had been trapped inside the purple bottle, was reconstituting itself now that it was free—like a dry sponge exposed to water. The mighty branches shot up and out, crashing through any obstacle before them. Pieces of stone ceiling plummeted down like giant pieces of hail, crushing snakes.
“This isn’t the last time you’ll see me!” The Serpent King waved his arms, and in a flash of green, he transformed himself into a hideous serpent with a hundred heads. His endlessly coiled tail vibrated with a primordial power. Already, the banyan tree was destroying the room. Now, with every rattle of his mystical tail, the entire cavern shook and spun. Cracks shot along the walls and floors. A huge one beneath the throne opened up, and the Serpent King and Naga disappeared through it.
Neel pulled at my arm. “Wait!” I shouted, breaking free of his grasp.
In the chaos, the seven-headed serpent had left the python jewel. I grabbed it, tucking it inside Neel’s jacket, which I was still wearing.
Neel took my hand again in his steely grip and pulled me toward his body. “Hold on!” he ordered, and I wrapped one arm around his shoulder, holding Tuntuni with the other. Neel lunged, grabbing one of the branches that shot its way toward the sky.
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