Darren Shan - City of the Snakes

Wami scowls, then nods curtly. “Very well. We will wait. But if a way does not present itself within the next few hours, I will search for it myself or abandon this crazy quest. I do not intend to grow old down here in the dark.”

A strained silence embraces us, interrupted only by the occasional sputter or spit of the torches. I sit by Ama but she’s distracted, sniffing the air, studying the walls and tunnels, waiting for something but not sure what.

An hour passes. Two. My father hasn’t moved. He sits with inhuman poise, eyes closed, head bowed, breathing lightly. I try to mimic his appearance but I’m too edgy. My eyes keep flicking to Ama, Wami, the tunnels, my watch.

As the third hour draws to its close, Ama stands and moves to the mouth of one of the tunnels. My father’s eyes open slowly and he gazes at her. When she turns, she’s smiling. “They come.”

“Who?” I ask, hurrying to where she’s standing.

“You can’t hear them yet. But they’re coming.”

“Who?” I ask again.

“I don’t know. But they’ll lead us where we wish to go.”

My eyes scan the cavern in search of a hiding place, although I know from the last three hours that there isn’t one. “Will we hide in a tunnel?”

“We do not know which they will choose,” Wami notes.

“If we pick the one they take, we run on ahead. With luck they won’t—”

“No,” Ama says softly. “We stay and present ourselves. This is where we were always meant to come when we were ready.”

“I will not surrender myself to the priests,” Wami says stiffly. “You may greet them if you wish. I will move on ahead, hide and follow later.”

“No,” Ama disagrees. “Stay or be excluded. Only the invited may progress. They’ll know you’ve been here. If you don’t offer yourself…” She smiles tightly. “We both know what they can do to Ayuamarcans when we displease them.”

Wami growls a curse but makes no move for the tunnels.

“Another thing,” Ama says, sliding out the pair of knives I fitted her with at the start of our trek. “We must disarm ourselves. They won’t accept us otherwise.”

“Does that include our vests?” I hiss.

She pauses. “I’m not sure. We can’t take knives or guns. By rights we should leave the vests too, but… No. Let’s chance it. If they frisk us, we’ll have to take them off, but I don’t think they’ll expect such weapons. We might be able to sneak them in.”

I lay my knives and pistol on the floor. “Are you doing this or not?” I ask my father, who’s standing unhappily in the middle of the cavern.

“Only a fool voluntarily abandons his weapons,” he says.

“We still have these ,” I grin, flexing my fingers. “I’ve never seen an armed villac . If you can’t take care of them with your bare hands…”

He smiles and disarms. “Very well, Al m’boy. Hand to hand it shall be.”

With all our weapons on the floor, laid out in neat rows, we squat and wait for the guides promised by Ama to appear.

Forty minutes later they come. Judging by the echoes of their footsteps, there are three of them. “You two take the left,” Wami hisses, moving to the right of the tunnel entrance and pressing close to the wall.

“No,” Ama says calmly. “We’ll wait for them in the open. They must believe that we pose no threat.”

Wami grits his teeth but he does as Ama says, deliberately positioning himself to my side, giving Ama the cold shoulder. I’m as unsure about this as he is — the plan was to grab a priest and torture Raimi’s location out of him, not give ourselves up — but I trust Ama. I just hope that trust isn’t misplaced, that she’s not a pawn of the priests sent to betray us from within.

A few minutes later a trio of villacs enters the cavern. I’m pleased to note that the middle priest is the English-speaking one who introduced me to this subworld the day I first met my reincarnated father. “Pleased” because it means we can make him talk in our language if we have to resort to torture.

The villacs stop when they sense us and the hand of one streaks to a pouch tied to his waist. Then they recognize us by our scent or our auras and their faces relax.

“Welcome, Flesh of Dreams,” the middle priest says, bowing. “And welcome, Dreams Made Flesh.” He nods at Ama and Paucar Wami in turn. “It is good that you found your way here. We have waited a long time for this.”

“We’ve laid aside our weapons,” Ama says. “We offer ourselves freely and ask to be guided to”—she hesitates, then concludes weakly—“wherever we’re supposed to go.”

The priest smirks. “Your memories are incomplete, as they were meant to be.” He faces me and his smile fades. “Are you prepared to accept your destiny, Flesh of Dreams?”

“Yes.”

He frowns. “You sound uncertain. Perhaps this is not the right time. Maybe you should return to the surface and come again when—”

“It’s now or never,” I cut in. “The city’s yours, or soon will be. If you’re to divide it up as you wish, this is the time to do it. Take me to Capac Raimi. Let me talk to him and see if we can reach an agreement.”

One of the other villacs says something in their own language. The middle priest replies, then addresses me again. “We would rather you had come to us in the cave of the inti watana , where our brothers could have borne witness to your pledge. But the most important thing is that you have come. We’ll lead you, and introduce you to the one who will look into your heart and judge your true intentions.” His blind eyes fall on my father and his features darken. “This one is not desired. The woman was your guide and is welcome, but the killer was meant to have departed this realm. Send him away.”

“No,” I shoot back. “He comes with me. I promised him answers.”

“He is untrustworthy,” the priest warns. “He will turn on you.”

“Maybe. But he’s my father and I’m taking him.”

The villac cocks his head at his brothers, inviting comment. When they say nothing, he sniffs. “So be it. He is your charge. You will answer for any of his indiscretions.”

The priest walks to the second tunnel from the right. We start to follow but he stops us and enters the tunnel alone. A few minutes later he returns with three sets of white robes. “Undress and put these on. You can only be presented to the Coya in the attire of her chosen.”

“What’s a Coya ?” I ask suspiciously.

“You will see once you have donned the robes.” He holds them out to us.

I stall, thinking of the explosives-laden vests. Then Ama presses against me and whispers, “They can’t see. Take off your clothes but leave on the vest.”

Smiling — it’s easy to forget that the priests are blind — I do as Ama says, and so does my father. I have a few uneasy moments when I take off my T-shirt — I keep expecting the priest to burst out with a sudden, “What the hell is that? ”—but the vests go undetected and moments later we’re in the robes. I grab my packet of chips, slip the bug from the collar of my jacket — we’re all wearing miniature units — and attach it to my new garment. Wami and Ama do likewise.

“If you’re quite finished…,” the priest says, bemused by the delay.

“Ready and waiting, Captain,” I laugh buoyantly.

He moves to the tunnel on the far left and leads the way into a long stretch of darkness. Ama, Wami and I follow, the other priests bringing up the rear.

For half an hour we wind through twisting, unlit tunnels, our eyes as useless as the villacs’ . As we turn yet another bend, I glimpse a dim light far ahead of us. I also fix on a dull thundering sound. I’ve been aware of it for several minutes but I only now realize what it is.