Eve of the Serpent

by Jon Jacks



  Eve of the Serpent

  Jon Jacks

  Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks

  The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

  The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

  A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

  The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

  Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

  P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers

  Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

  Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel

  Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

  Text copyright© 2015 Jon Jacks

  All rights reserved

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

  Thank you for your support.

  Throw a stone, a pebble, into a pond.

  Count how many circular ripples, how many waves, you make.

  If you find them hard to count, don’t worry.

  I can tell you how many there will be.

  There will be seven.

  And there are reasons for this.

  Seven reasons.

  Olwen of the Six Hands

  *

  Chapter 1

  ‘Ah, here you are again, little fox: what do you need to know tonight?’

  ‘I have no assignments,’ the little vixen answered miserably. ‘No one I’ve met recently wishes to know their future.’

  ‘Everyone wants to know the future: they’re just fearful that they’re not being told the truth. That they’re being fooled to relieve them of their money.’

  ‘I’ve never knowingly taken their money with the intention of fooling them.’

  The little vixen’s face screwed up a little in distaste.

  ‘I know you haven’t, little fox. But many do, for so few have your talent. A talent you waste, I must say.’

  The lady turned from working on her tapestries to chidingly peer at the vixen who, sitting on its haunches, was patiently waiting for her to finish.

  The lady worked on three tapestries at once, one representing the past, one the present, the third the future. She worked rapidly, her arms and hands a blur, so that anyone seeing her would remain unsure as to how many pairs of hands she actually had.

  She weaved her creations from the threads of life, from the weft and waft of intertwining lives. As she worked, the sinews of the tower around her sang and hummed, picking up the world’s emotional vibrations as if it were a vast harp. The threads resonated, trembled, sensing the delicate touch of a lover, the wailing of a babe freshly thrown into the world, the last breath of a life too shortly lived.

  ‘It’s good that, tonight at least, your time won’t be wasted with me.’

  The lady smiled. Her hands never stopped working on her tapestries.

  The three she was working on were nearing completion. At first glance, one showed a ship crossing a stormy ocean, the second the ship docking in a port, the third a boy not much older than Prytani breathing life into birds he’d made of clay.

  ‘This is a tale more interesting than most,’ the lady calmly continued. ‘For the coming of the boy heralds my own end: perhaps even my death.’

  *

  Chapter 2

  When Prytani woke, she shivered, the cold penetrating through her thin clothes despite the warmth offered by Tamesis’s fur and body. The little vixen smelt warm and comforting, and Prytani briefly hugged her tighter before unenthusiastically rising to her feet.

  She had better move quickly, before she was found here. She carefully touched the bruise on her forehead, recalling how painfully the stone had struck her when she’d been chased off a farm the previous night.

  ‘Little tramp!” the woman had gleefully called after her. ‘We don’t need your thieving sort round here!’

  Thieving!

  She never stole anything!

  Well, not unless she absolutely had to, anyway. She had to eat, didn’t she?

  As she’d told the lady, she’d found it hard recently to persuade people she really could offer them advice on any impending problems or anxieties. The people around here seemed to have been tricked by too many charlatans, too many false seers pretending to have the gift. They didn’t take kindly to anyone promising them a real insight into what their future held for them.

  The thrown stone was just one injustice she’d suffered. She’d also been chased off with sticks, set on by dogs (with poor Tamesis only just managing to get away with her bushy tail completely intact), whipped with the dripping wet blankets the washerwomen had been beating clean on the riverbank.

  She and Tamesis now both smelt heavily of the old, pitched rope they’d used as their bed for the night. In every other way, it was useless rope, shredded and weak, now fit only for caulking between a hull’s planks. But if anyone found her here, they’d accuse Prytani of causing damage, of spoiling any of the goods stored in the ramshackle warehouse.

  They took turns clambering out through the hole in the wall’s rotting boards. It was a tight squeeze, even for Tamesis. This brought them out into the maze of dank, narrow alleyways running between the harbour’s warehouses. Shaking themselves down, they set off for the dockside.

  Overnight, a new ship had docked. Prytani recognised it immediately.

  It was the ship from the tapestries.

  The ship bringing the boy.

  *

  Chapter 3

  Whenever the lady showed Prytani her tapestries, she didn’t tend to explain what they meant, what story they told; Prytani could see the story unfolding before her, as if the woven pictures flowed, moved, like waves upon a sea.

  Yes, Prytani was well aware that all this took place purely within her dreams, when she and Tamesis merged to become one, yet she had never found cause to doubt whatever the lady showed or told her.

  This time, however, it was the lady herself who had expressed doubts about the third tapestry; the tapestry that told truths of times that have yet to take place, sometimes lying far ahead of their own time.

  ‘It shows the boy when he was younger still,’ the lady had warned. ‘For it is a story that will be told only long after he has begun to change the world.’

  The boy was playing by a brook, taking the clay and fashioning it into twelve sparrows. But his father was angry with him, for today was a religious day, when no one should work or toil. So the boy clapped his hands, the birds sprang into life, and then flew away.

  The boy has come from a land on the farthest side of the inner sea, accompanying his uncle, who’s here to purchase tin mined in the area for the Great Empire. As befits such a long, arduous journey, his uncle’s ship is larger by far than any of the home grown boats surrounding it in the harbour. It boasts a single, high mast, a gigantic sail that captures the wind and transforms it into the power that moves the ship across the vast oceans. Its prow is elaborately carved, and endowed with the eyes enabling it to see its own way as it fights its way through high waves, through the most fearsome storms.

  As Prytani admired the ship, a boy came out on deck, the boy she’d already seen in the lady’s tapestries. He stared about him curiously, as if intrigued, excited, by this new land he found himself in.

  Suddenly, a large leather-gloved hand clamped down ha
rd on Prytani’s shoulder. She tried to duck and break free of the powerful grip, as she normally did in such situations. But it was useless; the hand refused to budge.

  She whirled her head around.

  No wonder the man’s grip was so powerful, so unbreakable: he was a warrior, clad in leather armour and heavy cloak. Around him, there stood five more grim-faced soldiers, their swords drawn.

  ‘You, you need to come with us!’ the man holding her commanded gruffly.

  *

  Prytani was swiftly trussed up around her wrists, then carelessly hoisted up onto the back of tired-looking old donkey. Here she was tied in place yet again. Tamesis hung around the donkey’s hooves, her face and tail drooping low in concern and worry,

  One of the soldiers made to chase the little vixen off, but the leader of the men stilled his hand.

  ‘No: we’ve been told the fox has to come too.’ He turned to the other men. ‘Keep an eye on the fox. If it looks like she’s planning on making a bolt for it, we’ll need to capture her, tie her up too.’

  Prytani considered telling Tamesis to run, to save herself. She held back, however. She knew Tamesis wouldn’t want to leave her. Moreover, Prytani felt reassured by Tamesis’s presence; if they were allowed to lie together tonight, she might be able to seek the help of the lady.

  Or, at the very least, see what her future held for her.

  *

  Chapter 4

  Wherever they were taking her, the men seemed to be in no rush to get there.

  Their horses leisurely ambled alongside the slowly moving donkey, even though each one appeared more than capable of taking their riders swiftly into battle, should the need arise. The men themselves sat astride their mounts as if out for a pleasant ride, rather than being on some bizarre mission to arrest some vagabond girl.

  The way they had tied her up, the way they were heavily armed, they were treating her as if she were some powerful sorceress – rather than a girl who only just managed to prevent herself from starving, by disclosing a few pearls of wisdom to those willing to part with a few coins.

  She ate better on this journey than she’d ever eaten. The men were wealthy, as could be witnessed from the expensive trappings on their horses, their own adornments of brooches and bracelets. Their swords alone were worth a few years’ wages of the average miner.

  They passed lakes and rivers in which uprooted trees had been planted upside down, the underworld of roots raised up to the heavens, the branches of life spreading out beneath the surface into the realms of death. They passed the great circles of immense stones, with their surrounding copses of rowan trees, their platforms of interwoven twigs, the wattles of knowledge were the seers would lie as they penetrated and explored the otherworld.

  It was already dark once again by the time they arrived at a village where the men authoritatively demanded and were given lodging for the night. A stream that ran through the village had been dammed to create a small pond, and here eight candles had been placed in its midst, lit in honour of the Triple Goddess. Prytani knew the meaning and purpose lying behind this small circle of candles: Cailleach the Crone, Goddess of Winter, of burial mounds and dark places, has drunk from the well of youth to emerge as the young virgin Brigit. It gave her hope that the lady was still watching over her, that tonight, as she lay with Tamesis, she would be able to visit her tower once more.

  It was not to be, however. Although the men installed her in a room better than she had ever slept in – though, once again, they tied her firmly if thankfully loosely to a curved metal spike brutally hammered into the floor – she and Tamesis were kept apart. Tamesis had been allowed to bed down in the ancient hay of a deserted barn, the warriors having finally accepted that the small vixen wasn’t going to run off as long as they held Prytani captive.

  As she slept, Prytani tried to take command of her dreams, to find the tower in her dreamscape. She had seen it so many times, she knew what to look for.

  She didn’t appear directly within the tower, alongside the lady, as she now usually did. She appeared outside it, far outside, the way she had when she’d first discovered she could make these journeys.

  The hill on which the tower stood was of glass. That was the most amazing thing about the scene, although it was just one of many amazing things. The hill was entirely surrounded by water, water strewn with lilies. It could only be passed over using the small boat that, appearing as if by magic before you, would guide you safely across.

  Tonight, there was no boat waiting for Prytani.

  It wasn’t the only obstacle preventing her from reaching the tower, of course.

  Round the bottom of the hill, there was a thick thorn hedge, as thickly and as expertly intertwined as one of the lady’s tapestries. As a fox, Prytani could easily make her way through this hedge, particularly as the branches slithered aside, giving her easier access.

  The tower itself, standing on the very highest part of the glass hill, was made entirely of wood. Perhaps, however, the term ‘made’ was the wrong one. It looked, rather, as if the tower had grown, much as a gigantic tree would. It’s similarity to a tree was enhanced by the protrusions extending from the tower’s sides, from which vast tapestries hung like gorgeous, multi-coloured banners. The tower’s twin flight of steps, too, gave the whole thing a thickly curling trunk effect, for they alternately spiralled both around and inside it. At times, they sprung out into the open air, at other times disappeared back inside the tower through a welcoming hole.

  Prytani and Tamesis had only ever taken the spiralling steps that deposited them on the inside of the lady’s room, but they had seen that the second flight brought you out onto a balcony running around her room. They had frequently watched in awe as one of the many animals or people perpetually ascending or descending the stairs would alight here, step forward as if the walls didn’t exist – and abruptly vanish, as if they themselves had never really existed either. None had appeared frightened, however; rather, they seemed pleasantly surprised, at least until they vanished.

  The lady’s room was ablaze with light, glistening moon-like high above Prytani. Music came from the tower, like strings being plucked, like the steady vibrating of a drum – like the wind whistling and singing gleefully as it flowed through the entire building, as if the whole thing were fluctuating with the movement of the world.

  It all seemed so inviting.

  So foreboding.

  But without Tamesis, Prytani wasn’t going anywhere near it anyway.

  And so her dreams descended into the nightmares normal people suffered while asleep, full of fears of what would happen to her when the sun rose once more.

  *

  Chapter 5

  When she awoke, the fears Prytani had imagined within her dreams hadn’t materialised, of course.

  In fact, as they rode along the dusty track once more, Prytani found herself smiling happily. Tamesis was running along close by, gladly snapping at and hungrily devouring any food the men threw her way.

  Prytani had missed the warmth and comfort of Tamesis’s body last night. Yet, seeing her running so close, seeing the brightness and intelligence of her eyes, Prytani sensed a connection between them that granted her the sense of security she’d lacked throughout the night.

  She still hadn’t asked any of the men where they were headed. She hadn’t asked why she’d been taken, either.

  What was the point?

  Would they tell her?

  And if they did, what good would it do her?

  Prytani accepted her lot, as she always did. That way, she avoided being disappointed in her life.

  She remained silent, but not sullenly so. Whenever one of the men looked her way, she smiled. Whenever they passed people on the road, she smiled.

  What good would being miserable do her?

  She was tied up. There was nothing she could do about that.

  Nothing she could do about anything just yet.

  A time would come, surely, when she’d ha
ve an opportunity to escape?

  *

  The more they travelled, the more nervous the men around her became.

  Prytani thought this odd, in many ways.

  They didn’t appear to be the type of men to frighten easily. The previous night, as the sun had set around them while they were still out on the road, they hadn’t displayed the anxiety Prytani usually detected in people travelling between the safety of villages. They had laughed at, even relished, the thought that a band of brigands might make the mistake of attacking them.

  Now, however, even though they must now be closer to their home than they had been before setting off, they glanced about themselves warily. Usually, the nearer a person was to home, the land and people they were familiar with, the more secure they felt.

  What’s more, it would be a full moon tonight, lighting up the land around them almost as brightly as a daytime sun, albeit with a mysteriously hazy, silver glow. Anyone attempting to attack them would be brightly illuminated, any attempt at surprise or instilling panic ruined.

  ‘We could ride faster,’ one of the men suggested, trying to hide the edge in his voice.

  The leader glanced down at Tamesis, silently trotting along behind the horses.

  ‘And risk losing the fox? More than our lives are worth, I reckon.’

  ‘Hah, there’s much easier prey for this supposed beast to hunt down.’

  The third man laced his comment with a sceptical chuckle. The first glowered at him.

  ‘You haven’t seen the bodies after one of these attacks. Half eaten, gored so that they’re unrecognisable. There’s a beast out there all right.’

  ‘That witch in the tower: she’s the one responsible for all this, I’ll bet.’

  Prytani started in surprise. Surely this fourth man who’d spoken wasn’t referring to the lady in the tower? The lady only existed in Prytani’s dreams, not in reality. Besides, the lady could hardly be described as a beast. She was hardly the type, too, who would go around killing people.