Hyden couldn’t say which smelled worse, the cavern they were in, or the dwarf. Oarly was still drunk from the previous night’s feasting. Brady was as well, but Oarly had apparently bathed in spirits of some sort. He smelled like a monastery’s brew barn-like fermenting fruit and yeast. The cavern, on the other hand, smelled of brine and rot. Something had died down in the passageway and Hyden could tell by the sickly sweet odor that the death had been relatively recent.
Hyden’s head was pounding, more from the heady smoke the bonfires had bellowed out late last night, than from the few goblets of ale he drank. He didn’t know what green plant it was that the painted Ja Jebba sorcerers had thrown on the fire, but its smoke had been uplifting, to say the least. It still amused him that Captain Trant called the Ja Jebba village sorcerers ‘juju wizards.’ Their language fit his mocking description well. Every other word they spoke sounded like “ju”, “ja”, or “jo”. Their almond skin and wickedly painted faces made them seem to turn into fantastical things as the pungent smoke took effect on the people gathered around the fires. Their honey-skinned half-naked women had, as Captain Trant promised, known exactly what parts of their bodies to gyrate and exactly how to gyrate them. The only negative aspect of the whole experience was the fact that no one in the group had been allowed to sleep off the haze of the evening.
Before dawn broke the horizon, Phen was raring to go. As soon as they landed on the island, the eager young mage purchased a map of the tombs. He discounted it entirely. It showed the same caverns that the sailors he’d questioned had visited. He knew there was no teasure in them. While the others drooled and drank and floated on the smoky high, Phen was busy. He bribed a native who worked at the inn they were staying at, and learned of an ancient tribesman whose daughter sold love potions, charmed trinkets, and curses. He had to buy a sackful of useless crud to learn what he wanted, but after spending enough coins and teaching the woman a minor spell of finding, she let him speak to her father. The old man had cackled with delight when his daughter told him that Phen was searching for the real tombs of the Jakarri.
“Who knows?” the woman translated the old man’s words to Phen. “The Jakarri have been dead for two thousand years, but there is a place on the island where you might find something very interesting.” The woman looked at her father with more than a little concern showing when he named the place. She didn’t seem to like the idea of translating its location to Phen, which made Phen all the more eager to learn it.
“The Serpent’s Eye,” she finally said with a voice full of reluctance. She showed Phen its general location on the map she’d sold him. It wasn’t labeled as such-it was just a cove on a stretch of rocky shore. “You’ll have to enter at low tide and by boat,” she told him. “The eye closes when the tide comes up. But be warned, none who have ventured there have ever returned.”
Now here they were, still reeling from the night before, hunched in a low-ceilinged cavern watching the tide close up the only way out. Deck Master Biggs had let them off and rowed out of the cavern some hours ago. Talon was outside as well. The hawkling was hunting the glade of windblown trees at the top of the rocky formation they were inside of. Hyden wanted his familiar close so that he might send him for aid if the need arose.
They had already followed one of the two passages that led away from the entrance. It terminated in an ancient pile of bones, many of them human. They were scattered about a long abandoned nest of some sort. Phen found a rusty shirt of chain mail, a broken dagger, and a chain made of fine silver with an ornate key dangling from it. In a dried out oil cloth sack, he also discovered a small journal. The pages were brittle and the wire-thread binding was ruined, but the strange text that had been expertly scribed within could still be made out. Phen carefully wrapped the old volume and put it in his pack. Then he put the silver chain over his head with a proud grin of accomplishment.
Phen was so pleased with what he found that he already agreed to return to the inn without exploring further. The others wanted to sleep off their agony, but there was a problem: the tide had already risen past the point of no return. Now they were stuck in the cavern until the tide withdrew. After coming to terms with their plight, the others agreed to explore the other passage with Phen just as soon as they had a meal and a took short nap.
They ate dried salted meat and cheese, with fresh bread Phen purchased from the inn’s cook. After they had eaten, Oarly and Brady both lay back and rested. Hyden used the time to practice a simple illumination spell that Phen had already mastered. When it was cast properly, a small fist-sized ball of yellow radiance, about as bright as an oil lantern, would appear in the caster’s hand. It would rise above his head and hover there, following him wherever he went, until he broke the spell with a gesture and a spoken word.
Hyden had managed it a few times, but more often than not, his sphere appeared too small or misshapen, and the light was some strange mixture of green and orange that barely lit his hand when it formed.
“Your problem is your pronunciation of the words in the spell,” Phen scolded him. “You can’t speak like a village hick when you’re using magic. Very, very bad things can happen.”
“The boy found, and looted, a dead man,” Oarly grumbled between snores. “Now he’s grown bigger than his britches.”
Brady laughed. “No, Oarly, he’s right. Hyden Hawk might turn one of us into a goat by accident if he gets his words wrong.”
The dwarf didn’t hear. He was already snoring again. What Oarly referred to as peaceful sleep sounded more like a cavern full of angry bears. Oarly was happy to be off of the ship, and ecstatic to be underground. He had said so at least a hundred times while they were exploring the first tunnel. The quality of Oarly’s snoring shifted and began to sound more like a trapped and wounded animal bellowing for its life. Hyden tried to blame the terrible sound for his mispronunciation of the spell words, but Phen wasn’t buying it.
“If you can’t say the words with Oarly snoring,” Phen lectured. “How are you going to be able to say them when arrows are flying at you?”
“All right, Phen,” Hyden sighed and tried again. This time the orb appeared in the correct shape and with the proper amount of yellow light emitting from it, for its size. The sphere was only the size of an acorn, though-far too small to light anyone’s way.
“You’re getting closer,” Phen encouraged. “It’s more in th-”
“Shhh!” Brady hissed suddenly. “Can you hear that?” he added in a whisper.
The light in Hyden’s hand dissapated, leaving them in relative darkness. The sloshing water surging in and out of the cavern’s mouth had a blue-tinged glow deep within it. It kept the space swirling and drifting in a perpetual glimmer of subtle illumination. Over the sound of the ocean, a long deep hissing sound could be heard. The shimmering of the water played on the stalactites crazily. Hyden could barely see Phen, who was sitting only a few feet away from him.
“What is it?” Phen whispered. The sound was growing louder.
“Look,” Brady pointed toward the black gaping maw of the tunnel they hadn’t explored yet.
They could barely see what he was pointing at. A faint green glow was flickering slowly along the tunnel walls. It was growing brighter, as if someone were carrying a green-tinted lantern out from the tunnel’s depths. The hissing sound came again, and this time the fact that it was coming from something very big and very alive was unmistakable. Oarly’s snore rumbled through the cavern over the hiss, then stopped abruptly as Brady cuffed him in the side of the head.
“What… what?” Oarly grumbled angrily.
“Shhh!” both Phen and Brady hissed in unison.
A soft “Ooh,” was all that Hyden could manage to get out of his mouth as the thing came into view.
With eyes the size of chicken eggs, Phen quickly scrambled to Hyden’s side.
The huge eel-like thing undulated forward. None of the companions dared to move for fear of alerting it to their presence. Its slimy, scaled skin radiated a phosphorus green glow. It turned its hovering head toward them and a long purple-black tongue flickered forth. Hyden couldn’t judge how big it was until it lurched swiftly at them and put its head close enough that it nearly licked his face.
Its milky white eyes had no pupils and were as big as Hyden’s head. At least twenty feet of the thing was out of the tunnel now. The creature’s head was viper-like and swaying sinuously above the rough floor. The underside of its body was lined with row upon row of palm-sized suckers. Its mouth was wide enough to swallow a man whole. Hyden felt the strangest sensation as the serpent weaved in place, tasting the air around them.
Hyden’s chest began to tingle. When he looked down, he saw that it wasn’t actually his chest, but the medallion that hung there. Tiny little sparkles of light were jumping from the teardrop shaped jewel mounted in the disc. They weren’t alive, but the prismatic flashes of pink, turquoise and lavender light resembled fleas or fireflies shooting out like a fountain. The strange emissions faded after they went more than a foot or two away from the jewel.
The serpent hissed, and Hyden sensed its disapproval of them trespassing in its home. He tried to speak with it in his mind, as he had with the dragon, Claret, and King Aldar’s great wolves, but the scaly creature’s only response was to flick its tongue at the dragon’s tear hanging around his neck.
Hyden could hear the breath trembling in and out of Phen’s lungs, and he smelled something rancid. After a moment the serpent eased away from them and slipped itself headfirst into the water. The eerie light of the distant sun shining through the submerged cavern mouth died out as the creature filled the hole. Hyden counted his heart beats as it slithered past them. He was at ten when Phen broke his concentration.
“What was that?” the boy rasped.
Hyden figured that he could have gotten his count up to as many as fifteen or even twenty before the serpent’s tail finally disappeared into the water, taking its phosphorus glow with it. By Hyden’s estimation, the thing had to be nearly a hundred feet long.
“I don’t know what it was, lad,” Oarly murmured in a shaky tone. “But it made me shit me britches.”
“I thought that was its breath,” Brady said with a gagging cough. “Make some light, Phen.”
Almost instantly a globe appeared in Phen’s palm and ascended to a spot about a foot over the boy’s head.
“It’s going out to feed,” Hyden said after taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. Oarly’s stench was foul.
“Let’s go see what’s back there while it’s gone,” Phen suggested.
“You go, I’ll stay,” said Oarly. The look on his hairy face was a comical mixture of disgust, embarrassment, and relief as he stood and unsnapped his belt. He waddled gracelessly to the water and waded into it until he was standing waist deep. The water clouded around him, causing the others to retch and turn away.
“If you stay with the dwarf, Hyden,” Brady said between heaves, “I’ll go with Phen. That way we will both have light. The smell is killing me.”
“I don’t think you should go in there,” Hyden told Phen. “What if it comes back?”
“You just want to go yourself,” Phen argued. “Besides that, it will take a long while to fill that thing’s belly. You said it went out to feed.”
“Aye,” Hyden sighed. Phen was right, he did want to go himself, but someone needed to stay with Oarly. “Go then, but straight in and out. Brady, if you don’t see anything after awhile just drag him out of there. If that thing comes back, you’ll be trapped.”
“Yes, sir,” Brady replied.
Hyden was glad to see Brady’s gleaming sword come out as he and Phen started down the tunnel. To his surprise, he managed to get his little orb of light to appear on the first attempt, and this time it was the correct size and brightness.
“Most things with a glow like that are night feeders,” Oarly said from the water’s edge.
Hyden glanced toward the dwarf to respond, but found him on the bank bent over bare-assed and ringing out his clothes. The sight of the Oarly’s furry little rump caused Hyden to bite back a laugh. If the dwarf hadn’t so brutally tricked him with the squat weed and the cinder peppers, he might’ve felt sorry for him, but after that horribly painful night at the Royal Seastone Inn, when the peppers made their way out of his system, he just couldn’t find any mercy for Oarly in his heart.
“Well, it’s not night time and the thing is off to feed,” Hyden replied.
“Maybe it’s because it lives in a cave underground, or because it’s always dark in the depths of the sea,” said Oarly. “But my gut tells me it might be guarding something back there-probably a nest.”
“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.