The Thorn Queen

by Elise Holland

  Muttering under her breath, Meylyne pointed to the trees behind them and their branches leaned to one another like tentacles and grew spikes as they wrapped around each other. Within seconds a thorny barrier was born behind them.

  Hope raced on. Now the diamond chariot was in sight, Grimorex peering from its prow. He held open the door at the back and Hope leapt aboard.

  The chariot needed no telling what to do. It lifted up and shot off, back to Grimorex’s castle. Meylyne, Hope, and Blue plummeted to the back of the chariot. There was a crack and then everything went black.

  20

  The Snake

  THE WET GRASS MOVED LIKE WATER, WHISPERING AT THE gold-tinged air. In the distance was a ring of statues—birds with hawklike heads and trousered legs. Their voices floated to her but she couldn’t hear what they said. She tried to run to them . . . her arm a burning log . . .

  Meylyne sat up, pain like daggers through her right side. She was in the diamond chariot, the wind whooshing above her in the black, star-crusted sky. Grimorex hovered above her.

  “Easy! Your head’s not bleeding anyway. Just a nasty bump. How’s your arm?”

  Meylyne noticed that her right arm was bandaged. It felt like it was full of shards of glass. Blue appeared at her side.

  “Meylyne! Are you okay?”

  Resting her head against the chariot, Meylyne closed her eyes as everything flooded back to her. Something ripped inside her and a weight crushed against her lungs. Next thing she knew she was sobbing—huge wracking sobs that left her shaking and gasping for air.

  “There, there,” she heard Grimorex murmur as he put his arm around her.

  “It’s worse than if she was dead,” Meylyne wept.

  “Who?” Blue asked.

  She could not bring herself to answer him. Eventually the tears dried up although the pain remained. She wiped her eyes and for the first time she noticed Hope lying nearby, his legs in bandages. Her stomach lurched.

  “Is Hope okay?”

  Grimorex nodded. “The wounds on his legs were giving him a lot of pain. I gave him a sleeping potion.”

  Meylyne rubbed her arm and grimaced. “It’s those demon-wolves that my mother sent.”

  “What?” Blue interrupted. “Your mother was there? She helped you fight the Thorn Queen?”

  Meylyne faltered as tears threatened to engulf her once again. She choked them back.

  “No Blue. The Thorn Queen is my mother.”

  For a moment, no one said a word. Grimorex’s eyebrows shot up and Blue just sat there with his mouth wide open. The chariot continued its flight through the night sky. It was a sky Meylyne had seen a thousand times before and yet it looked different. Everything looked different. Her world was not the same as before.

  “But, but . . .” Blue finally stammered. “How?”

  Meylyne told them everything. How her mother was the firstborn Rose princess, supposed to have died at birth; how the Snake People had kidnapped her and no one would pay her ransom—

  “Wait a minute,” Grimorex interrupted. “The Snake People kidnapped her? And her parents just left her there?” He shook his head, horrified. “What happened to her?”

  “She remained their prisoner until—” she took a deep breath. “Are you ready for this? Meph got her out. I’ve no idea why, but I think she killed him for his trouble.”

  “What? But he’s been terrorizing Glendoch—she can’t have killed him!” Blue said.

  Meylyne shook her head. “She’s the one that’s been terrorizing Glendoch—deliberately pitting the Francescans against the Tyrians. All she wants is revenge.” Meylyne looked at Grimorex. “You were right about the Relic possessing her. I managed to get the wand and the feather dust, but then I tripped and lost everything.”

  Meylyne put her hands over her eyes and broke into fresh sobs.

  “Why didn’t you blow on your whistle?” Blue asked, his face stricken.

  “I totally forgot about it.” Meylyne took her hands from her eyes. “All that time I spent trying to be so good at sorcery for her—what a joke. Oh, and that’s another thing—she switched my Book of Incantations for a fake! That snake at the Palace of Lions must’ve switched it for the right book!”

  Grimorex looked appalled. “She gave you a fake Book of Incantations? But for a fledgling alchemist, that’s like . . . oh I don’t know . . . denying you a part of your soul! That was to be your source of truth—something gifted to you by the Parliament of Thor-Schael themselves!”

  “She obviously didn’t care about that. What are we going to do now?” Meylyne looked from Blue to Grimorex. “Deep down I still thought she’d take care of the Thorn Queen. But she is the Thorn Queen.”

  “And you are a Rose Royal,” Grimorex said softly.

  Meylyne began to shake.

  “Here.” Grimorex handed her a thimble of something. “Drink this. It will help you sleep. And once we get back to my castle, we shall decide what to do.”

  Decide what to do. Meylyne gulped down the drink. The liquid burned her throat and her thoughts became fuzzy and jumbled. She lay down. What can we do? The great Oaken Mother is poisoned, Glendoch is on the verge of war and the person behind it all?

  My own mother.

  Meylyne awoke the next day to find herself in a large bedroom full of books. At first, she felt disoriented and then everything rushed at her, landing in a jumbled heap in her mind. Through the window next to her she saw a barn and a rose garden. She must be in the back of Grimorex’s castle. She could smell the roses all the way from here.

  Shivering, she pulled the comforter up to her chin but she still felt cold. She tried to swing her legs out of bed but her whole right sight was numb. Besides she was too tired.

  She fell back to sleep.

  As the day went on the numbing cold spread through her body. She was secretly glad for this as it lessened the ragged wound left inside her by her mother’s betrayal. By nighttime she could barely feel her limbs.

  That night Grimorex and Blue stayed by her side, waiting anxiously for some sign that she was getting better. She heard their worried murmurs—talk of poison left behind by her mother’s demon ghost-wolves. She stared out the window to the barn where Hope languished, subject to the same sickness as she.

  During the night her thoughts sharpened, as if the poison had the opposite effect on her mind that it did on her body. She picked up her incantation book.

  “Aethelrix,” she announced the next morning. “Those demon ghost-wolves are called the Aethelrix. It takes a Level Eight Enchantment to summon them, and to banish them. My mother probably endowed them with the white spider’s poison. That’s what’s happening to Hope and me. Our hearts are freezing. We won’t die. Just hibernate. Forever.”

  There was no emotion in her voice. She felt nothing as she said it—just a general sense of the effort to speak at all. She lay back down on the pillows.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hope and Grimorex exchange a look. Blue thrust her book at her.

  “Find the antidote,” he ordered. “It’s got to be in here somewhere!”

  Meylyne took the book and poured through it throughout the day but nowhere in its pages could she find anything that resembled an antidote. The light faded outside as day turned to night. Eventually she fell asleep.

  An hour later, she woke up. Something jabbed into her arm. Half asleep, she tried to pull it away but the pain remained. In a ray of moonlight, splashed across her bed she saw a dark smudge. A bolt of terror surged through her.

  That’s a snake!

  Before she could scream the snake locked eyes with her and a fog settled over her mind. Not really sure if she was awake or asleep, she watched as it drew back its head and slithered out of the window. Her arm began to throb and then, like one caught in a net, she felt herself being pulled after the snake.

  I must be dreaming, she thought as she climbed out of the window and followed it down the garden path, past the roses and the barn. The pain in her
arm grew stronger, spreading through her right side as they approached Grimorex’s forest. She had a vague feeling that she did not want to go in there but still her legs pulled her forward and before long the darkness of the forest enveloped her. The snake wound its way down a path that she would have never found, and then it veered off to the left. She followed it through brambles that tugged at her skin and her nightdress, and then her stomach lurched as all of a sudden she was falling—falling or flying, it was hard to tell which—through a tunnel of sparks and a kaleidoscope of color, her hair and nightdress billowing behind her. She landed with a bump, breathless, at the base of a steep embankment.

  No, a crater, she corrected herself as she looked around. A crater with white, chalky walls. At the top, it was ringed by trees—silver-willows by the looks of things—their roots snaking down the crater-walls. The moon was a splash of light behind a thin veil of clouds.

  The snake was coiled at her feet. Emerald green, it had a pale pink stripe winding around its body and it stared at her with blue eyes that looked oddly familiar.

  “Are you all right?” it asked, its voice smooth and silky.

  Meylyne blinked. She had not taken it for a Talking Snake. Then she groaned.

  “No I am not all right.”

  The pain was spreading was spreading from her arm to her entire body. It made her head throb and her vison blur. A breeze blew bringing with it a hint of roses and a memory struck her—a memory of roses when they had first arrived at Grimorex’s. The breeze felt nice and she realized it was hot—too hot—wherever they were.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “I want to go back to Grimorex’s!”

  The snake did not reply straight away. Instead it slithered toward the crater wall. Following it with her gaze, Meylyne frowned. There was something hidden there that she had not seen before—a gate, intricately carved or maybe woven from bleached roots and covered with a strange, undulating pattern.

  “Are those—?”

  “Scales,” the snake finished. “Yes, this is the gate to the Beneath-World.”

  21

  The Beneath-World

  “THE BENEATH-WORLD?”

  Images of fiery mud and hideous fanged monsters crashed into Meylyne’s mind. She tried to scoot away but found she was rooted to the spot.

  Then the gate opened, silently receding into the gloom behind it. Heat belched out like a monster’s breath. Meylyne struggled frantically as whatever force held her in its power pulled her to her feet.

  “No!” she cried. “I can’t go in there! Why are you doing this?”

  It was no use. She was dragged after the snake as it slithered through the gate, its pink stripe glowing in the gloom.

  “Please!” she sobbed. “Stop!”

  The force released its hold as the gate closed behind her. Her eyes darting from side to side, she saw she was in a tunnel, its walls covered in mud and full of holes. Every now and then the holes sucked themselves inward and then popped. If not for the snake’s stripe glowing ahead of her and a faint effervescence in the mud, the tunnel would have been pitch black.

  “Come. You are safe with me,” the snake hissed back at her.

  Meylyne scrabbled at the wall behind her, trying to find some way out. Mud oozed between her fingers. There was no way out. She looked behind her—the snake was getting further away and darkness was closing in on her. Her breath shortened into ragged gasps as she wrestled with what to do. She was alarmingly short on options.

  “You must come—I promise you are safe,” the snake hissed.

  Meylyne felt the opposite of safe. After a second of agonized indecision, she dashed after the snake. Instantly the walls were alive. The holes in the mud became full of yellow, slitted eyes and forked tongues. The sound of hissing rose up around her.

  “What’s going on?” she screamed.

  “These are the snake people’s sentinels that guard the path to the inner Beneath-World,” the snake replied. “Don’t worry—they won’t harm you.”

  Meylyne choked down a sob, imagining all the snakes pouncing at once, writhing around and sinking their fangs into her. But the sentinels made no move to stop her as she stumbled down the tunnel which grew narrower and hotter with every step. Sweat poured down Meylyne’s face and back. Supposedly the mud in the inner Beneath-World boiled with fire.

  There was a noise to her right as the mud shifted slurpily and Meylyne whirled around to see a figure emerge from the mud. It was long and sinewy with red gleaming eyes.

  “Hello Meylyne, Princess of Rose,” the figure hissed in a slow, velvety voice that pronounced her name as “Princessssssss of Rossssssssse.”

  The figure stepped closer. Now Meylyne saw that its arms and legs were covered in dark green scales and its head more snake than person with its slitted eyes and flat nose. She clapped her hand over her mouth to suppress the scream building inside her. It was a snake person. She was face-to-face with an actual snake person.

  The deadliest predator known to Glendochians.

  For a second she felt dizzy and the world tilted around her. There was a flash of pink at her side. It was the snake.

  “Forget about what you’ve heard. No one here will hurt you if you do as you’re told.”

  Meylyne kept her eyes riveted on the snake person. It smiled, revealing two curved, glistening fangs.

  “Please put this on.”

  Meylyne backed away as the snake person handed her a bundle.

  “Is that a snakeskin?”

  “Yes. It will protect you from the fire when we meet with Borghesia.”

  “Meet with Borghesia? Who’s that?” Meylyne’s voice was little more than a squeak.

  “Borghesia is herself.”

  Meylyne took the bundle but made no move to put it on.

  “Put on the snakeskin,” the snake urged. “I promise Borghesia will answer all your questions. She will not harm you.”

  Meylyne had no choice but to do as she was told. Stepping into the snakeskin, she zipped up the front and pulled the hood over her head. It covered her face entirely, leaving two small holes for her eyes and mouth. The snake person handed her a pair of goggles. A giggle, bordering on hysteria, bubbled up in Meylyne’s throat as she pulled them on.

  I’ll look like a bug-eyed snake.

  The goggles were tight and restricted her vision. Sweat poured from her body beneath the tight snakeskin suit, which pressed stickily against her skin.

  “I’m going to suffocate,” she muttered.

  “No you won’t. Follow me.”

  The snake person disappeared back into the mud from which it had emerged. Meylyne stared at it in alarm. No way was she walking in there. An arm snaked out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward. A terror unlike any she had ever known before spread through her as she found herself completely enclosed in red, fiery muck. Spots appeared before her eyes.

  Calm down, Meylyne. Breathe normally! She forced herself to take deep breaths and as the spots cleared, two things dawned on her simultaneously—she could breathe and she could see. Patterns swirled in the glowing mud, displaying an intricate system of levels, hallways, stairs and rooms.

  “Come. You will meet with Borghesia through here,” said the snake person.

  Meylyne followed the snake person up some stairs into a large hallway or maybe a room—it was hard to tell in the eerie glowing light—in which three more snake people waited for them. One—Meylyne guessed it was female—sat on the floor, her legs curved, or rather coiled beneath her. Her scales were a brighter green than the others and some scales seemed tinged with pink. The other two stood on either side.

  They look hungry.

  As if she could sense Meylyne’s terror, the sitting snake person waved her arms and the other snake people disappeared.

  “There,” she said in a voice that was half whisper, half hiss. “No need to worry. Please, sit. I am Borghesia.”

  Meylyne sat on the floor. It felt like sinking into a fur rug.

 
“Well, well, well,” Borghesia said, her eyes glittering. “Princess Meylyne of Rose. Long have I waited to meet you.”

  “Me?” Meylyne rasped.

  She was desperately thirsty. Borghesia uncoiled her legs and stood up, reaching for something that she handed to Meylyne.

  Meylyne eyed it suspiciously. It looked like a cup of water. “What is it?”

  “A cup of water.”

  Meylyne took a sip. It tasted like water. She decided to drink just enough to wet her throat but ended up slurping the whole thing in noisy gulps. The drops that fell sizzled into tendrils of steam as they hit the ground.

  Borghesia sat patiently, waiting for her to finish. Meylyne flushed, suddenly aware that she must seem the barbaric one.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled. “Why have you been waiting to meet me?”

  Borghesia stretched her legs before her.

  “I imagine your mother told you half of her sad story. What exactly did she say?”

  “That your people kidnapped her when she was a baby,” Meylyne whispered. Her voice sounded warbled and she cringed at the hint of accusation in it.

  Fortunately, Borghesia did not seem to take offence.

  “Well that is certainly true,” she said comfortably. “Now allow me to fill you in on some details.”

  Pulling out something from behind her, she placed it on the ground. Meylyne’s eyes widened. It looked just like her mother’s crystal.

  “Is that another piece of the diamond chariot?”

  “It is.”

  Borghesia hissed at the lump of diamond. Colors swirled inside it and pale images flickered to life. Meylyne recognized the building that came into focus.

  “That’s Glendoch Castle!”

  Drawing nearer, she watched as a tall, willowy figure approached, a hood covering its face. When the figure reached the front door, a boy, around Meylyne’s age opened it. There was no mistaking his hedge-hoggy face.