Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools

by M. R. Mathias

  “What… what?” Oarly grumbled angrily.

  “Shhh!” both Phen and Brady hissed in unison.

  A soft “Ooh,” was all that Hyden could manage to get out of his mouth as the thing came into view.

  With eyes the size of chicken eggs, Phen quickly scrambled to Hyden’s side.

  The huge eel-like thing undulated forward. None of the companions dared to move for fear of alerting it to their presence. Its slimy, scaled skin radiated a phosphorus green glow. It turned its hovering head toward them and a long purple-black tongue flickered forth. Hyden couldn’t judge how big it was until it lurched swiftly at them and put its head close enough that it nearly licked his face.

  Its milky white eyes had no pupils and were as big as Hyden’s head. At least twenty feet of the thing was out of the tunnel now. The creature’s head was viper-like and swaying sinuously above the rough floor. The underside of its body was lined with row upon row of palm-sized suckers. Its mouth was wide enough to swallow a man whole. Hyden felt the strangest sensation as the serpent weaved in place, tasting the air around them.

  Hyden’s chest began to tingle. When he looked down, he saw that it wasn’t actually his chest, but the medallion that hung there. Tiny little sparkles of light were jumping from the teardrop shaped jewel mounted in the disc. They weren’t alive, but the prismatic flashes of pink, turquoise and lavender light resembled fleas or fireflies shooting out like a fountain. The strange emissions faded after they went more than a foot or two away from the jewel.

  The serpent hissed, and Hyden sensed its disapproval of them trespassing in its home. He tried to speak with it in his mind, as he had with the dragon, Claret, and King Aldar’s great wolves, but the scaly creature’s only response was to flick its tongue at the dragon’s tear hanging around his neck.

  Hyden could hear the breath trembling in and out of Phen’s lungs, and he smelled something rancid. After a moment the serpent eased away from them and slipped itself headfirst into the water. The eerie light of the distant sun shining through the submerged cavern mouth died out as the creature filled the hole. Hyden counted his heart beats as it slithered past them. He was at ten when Phen broke his concentration.

  “What was that?” the boy rasped.

  Hyden figured that he could have gotten his count up to as many as fifteen or even twenty before the serpent’s tail finally disappeared into the water, taking its phosphorus glow with it. By Hyden’s estimation, the thing had to be nearly a hundred feet long.

  “I don’t know what it was, lad,” Oarly murmured in a shaky tone. “But it made me shit me britches.”

  “I thought that was its breath,” Brady said with a gagging cough. “Make some light, Phen.”

  Almost instantly a globe appeared in Phen’s palm and ascended to a spot about a foot over the boy’s head.

  “It’s going out to feed,” Hyden said after taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. Oarly’s stench was foul.

  “Let’s go see what’s back there while it’s gone,” Phen suggested.

  “You go, I’ll stay,” said Oarly. The look on his hairy face was a comical mixture of disgust, embarrassment, and relief as he stood and unsnapped his belt. He waddled gracelessly to the water and waded into it until he was standing waist deep. The water clouded around him, causing the others to retch and turn away.

  “If you stay with the dwarf, Hyden,” Brady said between heaves, “I’ll go with Phen. That way we will both have light. The smell is killing me.”

  “I don’t think you should go in there,” Hyden told Phen. “What if it comes back?”

  “You just want to go yourself,” Phen argued. “Besides that, it will take a long while to fill that thing’s belly. You said it went out to feed.”

  “Aye,” Hyden sighed. Phen was right, he did want to go himself, but someone needed to stay with Oarly. “Go then, but straight in and out. Brady, if you don’t see anything after awhile just drag him out of there. If that thing comes back, you’ll be trapped.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brady replied.

  Hyden was glad to see Brady’s gleaming sword come out as he and Phen started down the tunnel. To his surprise, he managed to get his little orb of light to appear on the first attempt, and this time it was the correct size and brightness.

  “Most things with a glow like that are night feeders,” Oarly said from the water’s edge.

  Hyden glanced toward the dwarf to respond, but found him on the bank bent over bare-assed and ringing out his clothes. The sight of the Oarly’s furry little rump caused Hyden to bite back a laugh. If the dwarf hadn’t so brutally tricked him with the squat weed and the cinder peppers, he might’ve felt sorry for him, but after that horribly painful night at the Royal Seastone Inn, when the peppers made their way out of his system, he just couldn’t find any mercy for Oarly in his heart.

  “Well, it’s not night time and the thing is off to feed,” Hyden replied.

  “Maybe it’s because it lives in a cave underground, or because it’s always dark in the depths of the sea,” said Oarly. “But my gut tells me it might be guarding something back there—probably a nest.”

  “Why would it leave if it’s guarding something, especially when strangers like us have shown up?” asked Hyden. He was starting to think that maybe the dwarf was a little bit daft.

  “ ’Cause with the water up, no one can get in,” Oarly replied. “Which also means we can’t get out of here with its prize—whatever that may be. It knows we will be stuck here when it gets back.”

  Hyden realized that Oarly was probably right. The dwarf wasn’t daft—he was just extremely strange.

  “What do you think we should do?” Hyden asked.

  “Well, I think we would be in its belly already if your charm hadn’t dazzled it.” Oarly paused and grunted as he pulled his wet britches back on. “We could wait for it to come back and try to slay it, which I’m not sure we could do with the weapons we have. Or we could swim for it, which is probably the best idea for the three of you, but I can’t swim, so I’m not recommending that plan either.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “I think that, if Phen and Brady don’t disturb whatever it is the serpent is guarding, we can hide in that first passage until the tide is right for us to leave. It’s too narrow for that thing to fit into. You could have your bird get us help then, like you said. At least enough men to keep it scared back up in its hole till we get out of here.”

  It was a sound idea, except for two things. “Phen will meddle if there’s anything back there to meddle with,” Hyden said. “And Talon can get Master Biggs’s attention to come get us, but can’t tell him to bring extra men.”

  “Well, we better go keep Phen from stirring up trouble then.” There was very little enthusiasm in Oarly’s voice.

  The dwarf fastened his belt and, with a pained look, started down the tunnel after Phen and Brady. Hyden, with his magical orb bobbing over his head, was right on his heels.

  After a long, twisting jaunt through the rocky tunnel they came upon Phen and Brady. They were standing at a point where the tunnel seemed to drop away and open up into a vast cavern. Both of them were standing stock-still. When he gained their side, Oarly froze as well. Hyden’s jaw dropped to the floor when he saw what had stopped them.

  The bowl-like bottom of the cavern was full of clear water. Swarming in the water were thousands of serpents, all about three feet long and glowing the same eerie shade of green as the giant one. A glittery island rose out of the churning moat of eel-ish things. The cavern’s high ceiling was dripping with vicious looking stalactites and Phen and Hyden’s orbs of magical light caught on the treasure and sent sparkling shapes dancing and reflecting through the shadows overhead. On the island, there was a pedestal held up by three kneeling, life-size rusty statutes of skeletons. On the pedestal was a rather large emerald. Sprinkled about the island were dozens of smaller emeralds and a scattering of golden coins.

  Oarly, who was the one who recom
mended that the treasure not be touched, started forward with a will. Hyden caught his shoulder and stopped him before he could get more than a step away.

  “Not a chance!” Hyden’s voice was flat and full of authority. He had to admit that it was tempting, though. “If you made it past all those little sea vipers, the juju wizards’ skeletons would get you before you could return.”

  “You think the skeletons are real then?” Phen asked in a shaky voice.

  “Enchanted, or whatever you call it, most likely.” Hyden replied. “That’s what the legend says right, that Jakarri juju wizards guard the emerald? If this much of the legend is true, I’m not about to doubt the rest of it.”

  “I think the old man who sent us here was trying to feed the snakes, Phen.” Brady’s voice was grim as he continued. “I want to be away from this place before Momma comes back home.”

  “Aye,” Hyden agreed. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait!’ Phen said as he skirted over to the edge where the tunnel met the cavern. At his feet the water churned and splashed. Out on a shelf of rock overhanging the swarming serpents sat a small ornate wooden box. “The symbol on the lid looks to be the same as the one on the key I found in the other tunnel.”

  “I’ll get it,” Hyden snapped as he edged past Phen. Just like he had done hundreds of times on the hawkling nesting cliffs back home, he eased out along the wall toward the ledge. Below him the water began to boil with hungry little serpents. Luckily they couldn’t get a good enough hold to slither up the side of the slick mossy pool.

  Once he was at the ledge, Hyden grabbed the wooden box. It was light in his hands. He would have thought it empty if something hard hadn’t been rattling around loose inside it. He tried the lid with his free hand but it was locked. Just as Phen had hoped, though, it had a little silver clasp and lock that had obviously been crafted by the same talented smith that had forged the key.

  “Here,” Hyden called and tossed the box to Phen.

  Brady reached out as Hyden came across and pulled him the last few feet back on to solid ground. After he wiped his hands off on his pants, he urged them all back down the shaft.

  “Let’s go, Oarly.” Hyden turned the dwarf gently around and got him moving in the right direction. “Like you said earlier, we’re not equipped to get at that sort of treasure, or fight iron skeletons and giant sea serpents today. But believe me, man, there will be another day for it.”

  We can come back someday with Mikahl and Ironspike to help us, Hyden thought to himself.

  “I’m in!” Phen exclaimed. He was gleefully skipping and sidestepping down the tunnel, causing his orb of light to sling shadows along the mossy walls.

  “I never doubted that for a minute,” Hyden laughed. “But we’ve had enough adventure for this stop. We’ve still got the Silver Skull of Zorellin to find.”

  “If you do come back to get that emerald someday, I’m in as well,” said Brady with a little more confidence than he was showing a few minutes ago.

  “I’ll come,” Oarly said.

  “Only if you shit before you leave the inn!” Brady said.

  “Come now, my fierce friend,” Oarly jested back to him. “Don’t you know that it was my stink that kept the beast from eating us earlier.”

  “Aye,” Hyden chuckled. “Probably so.”

  Later, when the serpent returned, it paused only briefly before the smaller tunnel. It flicked its tongue half a dozen times as far into the depths as it could reach, and Hyden’s dragon tear medallion sparkled to life again, but only for a moment. The serpent soon disappeared back into its lair and, a few minutes later, the whole of the cavern was permeated with the smell of fresh raw fish.

  It took all the patience and reserve that Phen could muster to keep from opening the box while they waited for Deck Master Biggs to come and get them, but he managed it. Once they were safely back behind a locked door at the inn, though, he wasted no time cracking the lid. All four of them had agreed not to speak of the treasure they had seen down in the Serpent’s Eye cavern, but the little jeweled ring that was in Phen’s box was another thing altogether.

  Hyden couldn’t help but think about his brother, Gerard, and the horrible fate that a similar ring had brought him. It was all he could do to keep from snatching the prize from his young friend and hurling it into the sea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  So far, his trap had worked several times. Hell-born minotaurs, wyverns, and several fat gristly borusks couldn’t seem to resist the tiny twinkling light that his magical ring could emit.

  Gerard Skyler, if he could still be called that, hunched his slick, hard-plated body. He wrapped one arm around his spiked knees. The other, he held palm down on the smooth black endless floor of the hell that he was trapped in. His growing wings wrapped around his once human features, making him look like a glossy jagged boulder of coal, or maybe a large fractured piece of onyx. The glow of the ring on his clawed finger was like a firefly’s light in the depths of space, a single star in a whole galaxy. Its magic was strong, though, far stronger than Gerard could comprehend. It drew lesser demons to it like a bucket of blood might draw sharks in the sea. The two halves of the demon Shokin injected thoughts of malice in Gerard’s mind, terrible ideas of horrific destruction and consumption, all at random. Gerard had come to like them. It had been just him and his painful transformation, and this endless blackness, for so long that the intrusions were welcome.

  For a long time after the freed half of Shokin had returned from Pael, it had tried to pull itself together. It was no easy task, but Gerard mastered them. His changes weren’t just physical. The dragon’s yolk was transforming his mind as well as evolving his body. Now he was more creature than man, part dragon, part demon, and part human. His skin turned scaly, and at his elbows and knees, dagger-like spikes formed. His chest and stomach turned into steely plates, and a row of triangular fin-like platelets ran down the back of his head to the tip of his tail. His fingers had turned into claws, and his heels and toes grew into sharp spikes. He had grown taller as well, twice the height of a normal man, with thick thighs, and a long torso. His head was still relatively humanoid in shape, which made his visage all the more alien. His brows were thick platelets and his nose was elongated with open nostrils. His teeth had turned into finger-long fangs and his hair hung in thick ropey strands. His eyes, though, his eyes hadn’t changed. They’d grown larger to fit the sockets that they were in now, but they were still the eyes of Gerard Skyler, son of Harrap, brother of Hyden.

  Those eyes were sometimes fierce and determined like they had been on the hawkling nesting cliffs; like they were at the moment. Sometimes his eyes were full of love and longing. Those were the times when Shaella visited him through her Spectral Orb. Sometimes they were sad and empty as he wandered alone in the Nethers where there was no sun, no light at all, save for the tiny glimmer of his ring.

  His attention turned to a shadowy form that was coming closer to investigate the light of his ring. He was surprised to see that it wasn’t a lesser demon this time. It was an Oragod, a hulking greater demon that was so malignant it could sap the will-to-live out of anything that stayed too close for long.

  “Kill it!” part of Shokin hissed gleefully into Gerard’s brain.

  “Yes! Yes, so we can feed,” the other part of the demon added.

  Gerard was still alive and he needed to consume flesh to sustain his growth and existence, but Shokin was demon kind. It fed on fear and hate. This Oragod, if they could kill it, would satiate their gnawing hunger for a good long while.

  The Oragod lumbered closer. Its skin reflected a grayish hue when it caught the light of the ring. It was a four-legged beast that moved low to the ground. It had two wicked looking horns sticking up from its head, and it was easily three times Gerard’s size. This would be no easy kill, especially since Gerard had to do it quickly or risk the demon enslaving his will.

  Gerard felt his molten pulse quicken.

  “Wait till it gets closer,�
�� Shokin whispered.

  “Yes, then blind it with a flare of the ring’s light,” Shokin’s other voice added.

  Gerard felt the urges of the dragon’s fire burning in his veins as well. The plethora of instincts that came over him was like a tidal wave of predatory acid that ate down into his very bones.

  The thing was closer now. Glossy saliva dripped from its disfigured ram-like head and sizzled where it hit the floor. Its body was wolfish, but it moved with serpentine grace. Neither hair nor scale covered its thick pocked skin. Its teeth and talons were as big and sharp as swords, and evil magic radiated from it like a stench. Gerard sensed it all in his blood, and a pulse of desire pounded through him.

  With a tentative sniff at the air, the Oragod came into the light. It looked curiously at the slick rock sitting so out of place on the smooth expanse of floor. It couldn’t smell evil, nor could it smell the brimstone that all demons emitted. Cautiously, it reached out its fore claw and, with the tip of one of its talons, touched the source of the magical light that had drawn it there.

  With a guttural, primal roar, Gerard leapt up and spewed a streaking blast of dragon fire into the beast’s eyes. It shrieked and writhed, blinded by the flame’s scorching heat as much as by the sudden brightness. The instinct of the dragon’s predatory bloodlust burning in him took over Gerard. He didn’t have to think. That was a good thing, because the two halves of Shokin were cackling with gleeful malice all through his mind.

  Gerard leapt to the back of the writhing thing and didn’t even bother to dodge the sharp claw that raked harmlessly across his steely chest plate. The bigger creature arched its back and howled, twisting in vain as Gerard drove his toe claws and fore claws into its flesh for traction. He crawled right over onto its back, and an orb of purple static swelled out around them both. It felt like lava on Gerard’s skin, but he drove the Oragod’s magic from his mind. With unbelievable speed, Gerard crawled up its back, clinging to it with his claws like a squirrel clings to a tree. He made his way over its shoulder. Another blast of fire across its face made the thing scream and howl out in rage. The radiant protective spell it had cast flickered away. It thrashed and bucked and shivered every which way it could, but it couldn’t throw Gerard off.