Michael Mathias - Kings, Queens, Heroes, and Fools

“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 recommended 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.

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.