Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

“I’d say we have only moments before something really awful happens,” Harp said, pointing to the black goo that was bubbling up from the drains in the middle of the pools.

“I don’t think it’s a trap,” Liel disagreed. “It’s too obvious.”

“If it were a trap, would anyone be stupid enough to just walk up and press the button?” Boult asked. “No offense, Verran.”

“Whether it’s a trap or not, we should leave,” Liel said. The gunk was seeping faster into the pools, covering the bottom, and rising quickly.

“There’s only one way out.” Harp pointed to the archway at the end of the southern walkway. “Unless we go back up the ramp.”

“Let’s go back up the ramp,” Verran urged them.

“The Torque is close,” Harp said. He gestured to the open door at the end of the southern walkway. “We can’t leave it there for Tresco.”

Without waiting for the others to follow, Harp strode down the walkway and disappeared through the door. Liel was close behind him. The gunk was already gushing out of the drain. Boult grinned at Kitto and Verran.

“Do it for Princess Ysabel!” Boult shouted.

“Do it so we don’t get swallowed by that,” Kitto replied as the sludge jetted up into the air. Kitto and Boult hurried into the tunnel behind Liel and Harp. Verran hesitated for a moment, looking longingly at the beam of sunshine streaming down into the pit. Then he ran after the others, moving through the door and into the tunnel just as the geyser of gunk coated the walls and ceiling in thick black sludge.

“What was that?” Verran asked as they stood a safe distance inside the arched tunnel.

“More proof that yuan-ti are the most vile creatures on the planet?” Harp said, shuddering.

“It was probably a cleaning system,” Liel suggested. “They sprayed the room down periodically.”

“With putrid sludge?” Verran asked dubiously.

“I imagine they used water,” Liel said. “But it has sat in the tanks for a long time.”

“They needed some way to clean up after the eviscerations,” Boult said. He led the way down the short tunnel, which ended at a thickly lacquered door that was not much taller than Harp.

“Got those picks ready?” Harp asked Kitto.

“There’s no lock,” Kitto pointed out.

“Any thoughts on what’s on the other side?” Harp tapped lightly on the door with his fingertips. “When you’re planning your palace, what comes after the torture chamber?”

“Why don’t you just knock and see if the monsters will let us in?” Boult scoffed as Harp gingerly tugged open the door.

The small door opened onto an unexpectedly enormous hall. Twice as long as it was wide, the hall had high, vaulted ceilings supported by two rows of slender columns along each side. Another gallery ran the along the perimeter of the hall. Instead of wall mosaics, stained-glass windows lined the walls of the gallery. When the palace had been above ground, sunlight flooding through the blue and red glass would have lit the hall in patterns of colored light. But now only dim shadows filtered through darkened windows that looked out on the dank subterranean remains of Hisari.

“I didn’t think such an unassuming door would open onto something quite so dramatic,” Liel said in awe as she gazed up at the lofty ceiling and cavernous space in front of them.

Unlike the rest of the palace, the hall had not been underwater, and everything was covered in a thin layer of jungle dirt. Part of the vaulted ceiling had collapsed, but the jungle had grown across the gap, keeping the ruins hidden from outsiders. Through the sparse root mat above their heads, they could see the tree canopy and patches of blue sky. A large pile of rocky debris and dirt from where the ceiling had collapsed blocked their view of the other side of the hall.

“All the work to get to the palace,” Boult grumbled as he stared at the gaping hole in the ceiling. “And we could have just jumped down through the floor and come in anyway.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t know where the palace was,” Verran pointed out. “You could probably walk over it and never know what was under your feet.”

“How are you feeling, Kitto?” Harp asked.

“Better than ever,” Kitto replied nonchalantly. He was investigating a marble statue near the columns to the left of the door. The statue was a massive serpent with humanoid arms riding in a chariot pulled by four life-sized humans. In one hand the serpent held a scepter inlaid with a red gem. A golden crown of intertwined serpents rested on its brow.

“Can I take the crown, Harp?” Kitto climbed partway up the statue to get a closer look at the serpent’s carved face and leering obsidian eyes.

“Could that crown be the Torque, Liel?” Harp asked.

“No, Majida said the Scaly Ones hated the Torque,” she said. “They saw it as the bane of their power. They wouldn’t have put it in a place of honor.”

Harp considered Kitto’s request. “Let’s wait until we find the Torque. I don’t want to set off another trap….”

“It wasn’t a trap!” Verran interrupted angrily. “I saved Kitto’s life, and you’re mad at me for pushing a button.”

“Don’t worry about it, Verran,” Harp reassured him. “Boult set off a trap upstairs in the gallery. Remember?”

But Verran stalked away and began climbing up the pile of debris. Kitto jumped off the statue and hurried after him.

“Verran,” Kitto said as they climbed up the rocks. “You can have the crown …”

But when Kitto reached the top of the pile of rubble, he wheeled around and looked down at Harp, who could see fear in the boy’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Harp asked, scrambling up to the top of the debris.

When he reached Kitto, he saw that the rest of the hall was intact and unmarred by its wet environs or the jungle. An enormous mosaic covered the entire north wall, by far the largest that they had seen in the palace. The mosaic chronicled an epic battle, and it was immediately familiar—they had seen the aftermath of the battle in Majida’s Spirit Vault. The mosaic depicted the flesh-and-blood Captive in his last moments, the broken chains dangling from his arms and legs, his hands up in hopeless defense against an army of thousands of yuan-ti, and a blade of mystical flame that hurled through the sky toward him. It was the moment before his death, the moment when his bones would be forever locked in the black stone of the cavern.

“That’s what I saw in my dream,” Kitto said in amazement. “When I was under the curse.”

“You saw the mosaic?” Harp asked. The mosaic’s impressive proportions alone would have awed him. But the vivid color and startling details—from the runes on the serpents’ golden helms to the veins on the Captive’s iridescent wings—were breathtaking.

“No, I saw the army and the flash of fire that killed him.” Kitto pointed a shaky finger at the Captive. “I saw it from my own eyes. As if I were standing on the battlefield. As if I were him.”

“Isn’t that interesting,” Boult said, glaring at Verran, who glared back at the dwarf defiantly. “What else do you remember, Kitto?”

“Just that instant. And then I was back under the dome with you.”

“Look at that,” Liel called. While they were talking, she had climbed down the debris and crossed the marble floor to a white double-door under the mosaic. As she walked, her leather boots left narrow footprints on the grimy floor.

“Whatever is restraining my magic, I think it’s coming from in there,” Liel said when the others joined her in front of the door. The door was made from a pearl-like substance that shimmered in the dusky light.

“I can feel it too,” Verran agreed.