The Serpents of Arakesh

by V M Jones

  The Curator gave an almost imperceptible nod, and placed the second-smallest weight onto the flat platform at the raised end of the scale. The weight was about the size of a matchbox.

  ‘My lord, I have journeyed three long days with a sick child to attend this audience,’ the man continued, his eyes fixed on the array of weights. The Curator inclined his head, impassive. ‘My daughter …’ The man’s voice broke, and he put his hands up to his face for a moment before he continued. ‘My daughter is our only child, my lord. Until a moon ago she was like a little sunbeam, the light of our days and the hope of our future —’

  ‘Proceed.’ The Curator’s cold voice cut through the man’s words like a steel blade. ‘This will not assist your cause.’

  ‘Our daughter fell ill,’ the man continued. ‘A pain like an axe splitting her skull and her neck so stiff she could not bend it. We were certain she would die.’ He sighed. ‘But … she did not. And yet, neither did she recover. Now she lies like a wraith in a twilight land, neither of the living, nor the dead.’ He bowed his head. ‘We have begged gelden from kin both far and near, and sold all we have save the roof over our heads, to raise the price for the potion that will heal her,’ he said softly. ‘I rest the matter in your merciful hands.’

  The Curator’s pale hand hovered for a moment above the array of weights, finally selecting one about the size of a salt cellar, and placing it beside the other on the raised end of the scale. He motioned to the usher, who brought the first of the bags of gold, and placed it on the platform beside the two weights. The scale didn’t budge.

  The usher hefted the other bag. Even I could see how heavy it was. We watched, scarcely breathing, as he lowered it slowly onto the scale. For a moment, I was sure the balance would tip. The platform dipped a fraction as it took the weight of the bag, and the opposite end lifted for a tantalising second before settling back into its original position.

  There was a long, awful silence. Then the man started gabbling desperately, his words falling over each other. ‘Please, please, my lord, have mercy,’ he begged. ‘This is all we have — we can raise no more! Can we not include the ten gelden hearing fee? It would tip the balance! This is our last chance, our only hope! She is our baby, my lord, our only child!’ He was weeping now. I couldn’t watch; I felt sick. ‘I appeal to you as a father! If you have children, my lord, you will know —’

  ‘Enough!’ The Curator’s voice was like ice. ‘Remove this man. I exact a five gelden penalty for wasting my time and attempting to sway the scale by sentiment. Be thankful it is not more. Be gone.’

  None of us said anything for a long while. My nostrils were full of the sour, metallic smell of corruption. There were tears on my face, and a hard, hot anger in my heart.

  A tall, broad-shouldered warrior in silver armour stepped boldly before the Curators. His page trailed behind him, lugging a sack. When the usher approached, the man shoved him aside. He strode over to the Curator of Healing, threw down a handful of gold and held out one massive arm. His page unbuckled the plate of armour covering the shoulder, revealing a stained and bloody bandage.

  ‘A wound to my sword arm, sustained in combat in the noble name of King Karazeel!’ The man’s voice rang out among the pillars like a trumpet. The Curator placed a weight the size of a jam jar on the scale, followed immediately by another as the warrior continued, ‘Two score gelden have I won in battle this past moon, and halved to the king. I trace my lineage to High King Zilion by direct descent, as my wearing of the crimson sash affirms.’ The page removed his breastplate, and we caught a flash of scarlet that flared like a flame in the watery light of the chamber. Another weight joined the two on the scale.

  The page produced a bag from his sack, and handed it to the usher. He placed it on the platform of the scale, and the balance trembled. The warrior nodded to his page, and another, smaller bag joined the first.

  The balance tipped and the platform fell.

  One of the arms of the Curator’s chair was fashioned into a kind of rack, for all the world like the test tube rack in science class at school. The Curator selected a slim phial from the rack, rose to his feet, and presented it to the warrior, who took it, and bowed. Then, with a brief word to the usher, he moved across to the table in front of the black-garbed Curator.

  ‘I cannot bring myself to watch this any longer,’ Kenta whispered. ‘It is so unfair, so cruel … that poor, poor man —’ her voice caught. She closed her eyes, and a tear squeezed out from between her dark eyelashes. I felt for her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. I touched the others lightly on the shoulder, and gestured to them. Without another word, we crept back among the pillars.

  Any faint hope that we could somehow talk the Curator into parting with a phial of Healing Potion for Hannah had vanished as if it had never existed. That was the bad news. But the good news was that along with that had gone any scruples I’d once had about stealing the potion.

  I leaned back against one of the pillars, closed my eyes, and thought. I thought about whether there might be stocks of the potions somewhere, and if so, where that could be. I thought about the poem, and what meaning it might have in the light of what we’d seen. I tried to think clearly, imagining I was back in the forest, leaning against a tree trunk, with the song of the birds in my ears and hope in my heart.

  And suddenly Jamie’s words echoed in my mind: ‘Imagine a game of tag in here! These pillars would be even better than trees to hide behind!’

  My eyes snapped open. The pillars stretched away into the distance, as far as the eye could see. Just like …

  ‘Kenta! Give me the poem a minute!’ My hand was shaking with excitement as I reached out and started to unroll it. ‘I’ve just thought — the towering trees of stone. Do you think the pillars …’

  Kenta’s face broke into a huge beam. At last the map was open, and I glanced down to confirm the line made sense. The way I thought it did; the way it had to do.

  In the blank space above the poem was something that hadn’t been there before. Something written in the same thick, dark lettering. Something that had appeared out of nowhere, as if by magic. Something that made absolutely no sense at all.

  The hidden chamber

  Kai peered over my shoulder, and nodded sagely. ‘Aye, Hob said it be magical,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘He do have a heavy head, to be sure.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but no sooner do we solve one puzzle than another pops up,’ complained Richard. ‘If this parchment is supposed to help us, then why doesn’t it tell us what to do and where to look?’

  ‘Well, Rich, you ain’t used to magic, that be clear to see,’ remarked Kai. ‘Magic be logic, but it be logic hidden from plain sight — round a corner, so to say. These be the corners, your task be to find the way around them.’

  ‘It sounds simple when you put it like that,’ said Gen wistfully. ‘I only wish it was.’

  ‘If Kai’s right, and it is simple logic, then maybe we should approach it simply,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s ignore the new bit for a moment and go back to the beginning. The balm of healing rests beneath the towering trees of stone. Who thinks the trees could be these pillars? Who thinks the Healing Potion is somewhere in this hall — not just the few phials the Curator has with him, but the main supply? In a cupboard, or under a trapdoor, or even hidden in a hollow pillar — but somewhere nearby?’

  Everyone was looking at me, surprised. Then Kai said smugly, ‘There you be: logic, plain and simple. Follow your nose and you can only walk forwards. And now, my friends, I must bid you farewell, for now at least.’

  ‘Oh, Kai, no!’ protested Kenta. ‘How will we manage without you?’

  Kai looked ruefully at our horror-struck faces. ‘Pa has word of a large party from Shakesh before noon. I must be there to help.

  ‘But be of good cheer.’ His dimple reappeared. ‘You have your feet firmly on the trail. I am certain Adam be right, and the answer rests between these walls. Aye, I would give my sword arm
to help you … but magic be logic, and logic be pattern and symmetry. Read your parchment again, and the patterns will emerge. Some may appear from nowhere, as this one has; some be there already, waiting to be seen.

  ‘And one pattern at least I observe: the number five. Five potions, five steps, five of you.’ He looked round at us in silence, meeting our eyes one by one. ‘So you see, I may be best back at the inn,’ he finished softly.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Jamie admitted. ‘I guess if you really think so … you’re more used to magic and stuff than we are, after all.’ Well, that was putting it mildly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything else you’ve seen that we might have overlooked? Something glaringly obvious, that you can help us with before you go?’

  Kai hesitated. I could tell there was something on his mind, that for some reason he didn’t want to say.

  ‘Anything at all, Kai,’ I prompted. ‘No matter how weird it is — we’re pretty desperate.’

  ‘There is one thing,’ Kai said reluctantly. ‘It may be nothing, but there again … It be a tale of the cradle Karazan children take in with their mothers’ milk, but it may be unknown to travellers from Winterton. It be a women’s tale, a legend. But … they say there be Guardians of the Potions.’

  He lowered his voice to a whisper, and at his next words the hairs on my arms rose and the back of my neck prickled. ‘They say the Guardians be serpents, and the serpents reside in the temple.

  ‘That be the name that is whispered among the townsfolk: not the Sacred Temple of Arakesh, but the Temple of Serpents — the Serpents of Arakesh.’

  We watched Kai disappear among the pillars with hearts every bit as heavy as Hob’s head. Without him it seemed colder, quieter and somehow less hopeful. His words had left a shadow on all our hearts.

  We had agreed to find our way back to the Brewer’s Butt as soon as possible, ‘with your packs laden with potion and your heads full of many a strange tale, I’ll wager,’ Kai had prophesied cheerfully as he bade us farewell. But for now, it felt lonely to be just five again.

  ‘Let’s have another look at the parchment,’ Gen suggested. ‘Maybe the new message appeared because the magic sensed we were on the right track, telling us we’re getting warm and giving a hint about what we should do next.’

  We huddled round the parchment again. The message hadn’t changed. We stared at it in gloomy silence.

  ‘Well, let’s start with the obvious,’ I said, hoping I wasn’t about to make a complete fool of myself. ‘I can see the word water.’

  ‘Yeah, but why is it written downwards?’ demanded Rich.

  ‘Isn’t that what Kai was trying to tell us?’ asked Kenta slowly. ‘That if something is a certain way, there’s bound to be a reason.’

  ‘I thought I heard water before,’ I said suddenly. ‘Up near the Curators, at the end of the hall.’

  Richard got to his feet. ‘Let’s look for it,’ he said. ‘That would be better than just sitting round mooning over a mouldy old parchment.’

  It didn’t take us long to find the water. The curved section of wall behind the Curators wasn’t the external wall of the temple, as I’d assumed. It was an arc running parallel to the outside wall, but set in from it by a good couple of metres, which explained why there were no windows in that part of the hall. At the left end of the arc a wall ran at right angles, joining the inner arc to the outside wall. And cascading down the left-hand side of this short wall was a wide, unbroken curtain of water falling into a shallow, rectangular pool. I could vaguely make out the connecting wall behind. On the right-hand side, the wall extended beyond the edge of the waterfall to meet the inner arc, leaving an expanse of bare stone about the width of a door.

  ‘I bet there’s a room or something in that space behind the Curators,’ Jamie muttered, knocking on the stone with his knuckles.

  ‘This must be the water it mentions,’ said Kenta. ‘Unless there’s another waterfall at the other end of the arc — like a mirror image.’

  ‘A waterfall,’ mused Gen dreamily. ‘A water … fall.’ Suddenly her face lit up, and she hopped up and down with excitement. ‘That’s it! That’s why it’s written like that! The word water, falling down. Waterfall!’ She laughed, hugging herself with delight. Her eyes glowed.

  ‘Huh?’ said Rich.

  ‘Yeah!’ crowed Jamie. ‘Waterfall! Way to go, Gen!’

  ‘So we know we’re in the right place,’ I said. ‘Great job, Gen. It does make sense, once you think of it. And I bet the rest makes sense, too.’

  ‘Walieit,’ said Rich experimentally. ‘Wa-lie-it? Wally-it? Wally it! Maybe that’s it?’ he said hopefully. ‘Maybe we’re supposed to wally the waterfall.’

  ‘Good try, Rich,’ said Jamie kindly. ‘But how the heck do you wally a waterfall?’

  ‘Tie-i-law,’ murmured Gen, frowning.

  ‘Maybe it’s an anagram!’ suggested Kenta.

  ‘What’s an anagram?’ asked Richard.

  ‘It’s when you rearrange the letters to make a new word,’ explained Jamie. ‘Like in scrabble, or crossword puzzles.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Rich, looking blank.

  ‘Maybe it has something to do with wall! A hollow wall?’ hazarded Kenta.

  ‘Or lie? There’s the word ‘lie’ in there, in the middle, see? Maybe it’s telling us we have to somehow lie our way in …’ said Jamie dubiously.

  ‘Wait!’ yelped Gen.

  We waited, afraid even to breathe, eyes locked on her flushed, excited face.

  ‘Well, we’re waiting!’ said Rich impatiently, after a moment or two. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘No, don’t you all see?’ said Gen, laughing with exasperation. ‘Lie in wait! The word lie, inside the word wait! That’s what the clue is telling us to do: to lie in wait!’

  ‘Oh, yeah, right,’ goes Rich, with heavy irony. ‘To lie in wait, under the waterfall, I suppose.’

  There was a stunned silence. Then Gen flew at him and gave him a kiss I’ll bet you could have heard even in distant Winterton.

  ‘I only hope we don’t have to lie in wait too long,’ grumbled Jamie. ‘I could do with some morning tea.’

  We were standing in the narrow space behind the waterfall, with our backs to the cold stone wall. We’d hardly got wet at all going under — the sheet of water was as thin as a pane of glass. Looking through the falling water at the hall was like looking through a pane of obscure glass, like a bathroom window. Everything was blurred and indistinct, and I hoped that was how we’d look to anyone approaching from the other side.

  And as it was, less than ten minutes passed before a watery grey shape appeared. We could hear nothing over the rushing of the water, and could probably have spoken in normal voices without being heard. But all the same, Kenta whispered, her breath soft on my cheek: ‘The Curator of Healing.’

  We stood like statues while the Curator fumbled in his robes, withdrawing something on the end of a long cord. A moment later the wall behind us moved, sliding noiselessly upwards into the ceiling. With the wall gone, we found ourselves standing between two curtains of water. Through one curtain was the hall of pillars … and through the other, the secret room behind the Curators.

  Instinctively, we all turned to face the hidden chamber. I stepped forward so that when the wall descended again — as I felt certain it would — we would be on the other side, hidden by the inner curtain of water. The others stepped with me. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Behind us, as noiselessly as it had risen, the wall fell.

  The Curator moved to the far side of the room. His back was half turned to us, so it was hard to see what he was doing. There seemed to be some kind of cabinet fixed to the wall. He lifted the heavy-looking lid — a wooden rim inset with what looked like a large pane of glass — and rested it carefully against the wall. Stepping back, he wielded his staff over the open casket — uttering some kind of spell or incantation, perhaps? The staff dipped like a wand into the casket. Was he conjuring somethi
ng? I wished I could see more clearly.

  With a sudden flourish he withdrew something from the cabinet, turning his back on us as he reached for a glass beaker on the shelf above. He stood motionless, head bowed. There was something almost ritualistic about his movements as he dipped his hand once more into the casket, lowered the lid, measured and poured, measured and poured.

  At last, he turned to face the waterfall again. Now we could clearly see the rack of phials in his hand — ten or twelve of them, ranged in a neat row. More — presumably empty — rested on the shelf above, alongside the beaker.

  I felt a surge of triumph. The stocks of potion must be in the cabinet! And he hadn’t needed to unlock it. The potion was ours for the taking once he’d gone back to the audience chamber.

  He passed so close to us I could see the cold gleam of his eyes under the hooded lids. As he touched his pass to the door, he muttered something and the wall lifted. He glided through and it fell again, without a sound.

  We stood on the inside of the chamber, the water casting rippled reflections on our faces, staring at one another with disbelieving grins of sheer delight.

  We’d done it! We were through!

  The balm of healing

  Gen was first to move. She skipped through the veil of water and darted across the narrow room to the cabinet, her face alight with anticipation. I felt a sudden, urgent qualm of foreboding and opened my mouth to tell her not to touch it until we were all there together.

  She popped up onto her toes and peeped over the edge. Instantly, she let out a shriek — a shrill cry of such horror we all recoiled, and I felt the blood drain from my face. She sprang back and stood pressed against the opposite wall, as if she were trying to burrow backwards through it. Her face was ashen, her eyes staring fixedly at the casket.