The Serpent of Eridor Page 5

‘We are due directly south,’ said Tariq. ‘There’s the Single Redwood, immediately north of us on the way there. We’ll carry on to Ravenscraig if Zorrin is not at the tree.’

  ‘Who is Zorrin, anyway?’ asked Alex.

  ‘The most powerful of the elemental wizards – the good guys,’ said Tariq. ‘He looks like a pirate: long, curly, black hair down to his waist; brilliant blue eyes. I met him at the Battle of Gelforth.’

  ‘We’ll need to tackle this quest by daylight,’ said Ikara.

  ‘Ok. Meet early at my clearing tomorrow,’ replied Tariq. ‘Then we’ll cross the river to the path going directly to the Single Redwood. Questions?’

  ‘None. I’m too tired to think,’ replied Skoodle, as Alex hoisted him into his top pocket.

  ‘Not like you. You’ll be OK tomorrow,’ replied Alex.

  ‘If we’re really unlucky,’ muttered Ikara, slithering up Tariq as he stood up. Snake aboard, he shambled back into the dense undergrowth.

  CHAPTER 7

  As Alex watched them walk away a buzz of excitement shoved out his fear. Odd, but the adrenaline whizzing round him felt great.

  ‘Stress makes me hungry,’ said Skoodle. ‘There are some nuts in the emergency box.’

  ‘I’ll get them.’ Alex scrambled over the side of the boat, but lost his handhold on the wet edge.

  ‘You nearly squashed me,’ said Skoodle.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not much point in being sorry once I’m dead and with Uncle Toomba.’

  Alex put the grumpy rodent on the boat edge and climbed aboard. ‘Who?’

  ‘Toomba. Long-dead uncle. Invaluable, though. Gives me all sorts of advice.’

  ‘Isn’t that tricky if he’s not exactly alive?’ Finding the nuts, Alex passed a couple to Skoodle.

  ‘No. I ask questions and his voice replies inside my head.’

  ‘Mad people hear voices. Probably mad rodents too. So how do you know it’s him?’

  ‘It sounds like him. His advice is the kind that Uncle Toomba gave. Why do you ask all this? Don’t you get advice from life-challenged relatives?’

  ‘Only in my worst nightmares.’

  Alex had a sudden wave of longing. Advice from his parents would be great. To talk to them again would be amazing, even if he couldn’t see them. For a moment the sadness overwhelmed him. He sat down and gazed out to sea.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Skoodle.

  ‘Yeah, just missing my parents.’

  ‘Then there’s only one thing to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Dance.’

  Standing up on to his back legs – small front paws in the air – Skoodle started flinging himself about energetically, singing loudly and tunelessly. ‘Join in,’ he called.

  After watching for a few more minutes Alex got up and started to dance, copying Skoodle’s moves. After twenty minutes he collapsed in a heap, laughing, while Skoodle jived on.

  ‘That’s awesome. I feel a zillion times better.’

  ‘I have to practise at night,’ panted Skoodle. ‘It would look a bit odd if a human saw a hamster dancing.’

  ‘Lisa would have run away screaming. Brilliant thought.’

  Finally, Skoodle lowered himself down on to all fours again. ‘I’m shattered. Why don’t you look for food? I’ll sleep.’ Without waiting for an answer, Skoodle curled up in the shadow of the boat.

  ‘Sleep tight, Skoodle Van Winkle.’

  ‘Always.’

  Alex walked the length of the track to the clearing, but no fruit hung within reach. The jungle on either side of the path was dense and forbidding, the forest floor alive with multicoloured insects. Beetles the size and colour of lemons tramped silently through the undergrowth. Lines of giant flying ants marched in winding trails, their wings folded on to their backs as they stamped across the ground or snaked up tree trunks.

  Almost on the point of giving up, Alex saw some juicy-looking dark purple fruit hanging a short distance off the path. One of the purple fruits had fallen, bursting as it smashed to earth, releasing intense fragrance like an overripe nectarine. For a moment he stood looking at the fruit longingly, unable to decide whether to try and get to them.

  ‘Uncle Toomba, should I try and get that fruit?’

  I’m losing the plot, he told himself. Asking for advice from dead rodents. Too hungry to resist, even if Uncle Toomba refused to help, he forced his body through the undergrowth towards the fruit. Thorns scored deeply into his arms as the jungle enclosed him in a painful embrace.

  A sudden puff of wind wafted the scent of fruit through the humid air. Acute hunger felt like a drill boring into the pit of his stomach. Resolutely, Alex shoved on another step.

  Without warning the ground gave way, pitching him into a mudpit hidden beneath the heavy carpet of leaves. Thick black glue-like mulch enveloped his lower legs. Instinctively Alex grabbed the solid edge beside the mudbath, wrestling to get his legs free. Struggling drove him deeper into the cold, foul-smelling muck. Gripping like a python, the lake sucked him down into its black depths. Within minutes, both legs were compressed up to the thigh by the deadly embrace of the mulch.

  A graphic picture filled Alex’s mind of drowning in this filth – slowly, horribly, his mouth filling up with black tarry mud as he suffocated. Breathing fast and raggedly he fought on, muscles screaming. Virida’s death sentence had seemed horrendous, but now he would be grateful to live long enough to be killed by her.

  From the distance came the pad of heavy paws. The horror of being ripped apart while lying trapped immobilised him. The footsteps paused. Totally still, hardly breathing, Alex waited silently, powerless to stop himself sinking. The footfalls set off again, becoming fainter.

  As he started to struggle another sound reached him: the unmistakeable slithering of a snake. Desperate, Alex grabbed a thick stick, even though he knew how little use it would be against some of the monster serpents that lurked in the jungle. The leaves in front of him parted. A snake’s head shot out, poised for attack, neck winged, green eyes glittering.

  ‘Ikara.’ Relief surged through Alex.

  ‘In trouble, I see,’ said Ikara, lowering her head.

  ‘Get Tariq quickly. This stuff is like a vice.’

  ‘Too late by the time he arrived. You’d be gone by then. I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’re not big enough,’ yelled Alex. ‘Throw me a vine.’

  ‘It would snap. Don’t keep struggling. Things will get worse. You’re already in deeper than when you started fighting, aren’t you?’ Ikara dropped her head and stared at the ground, immobile.

  Alex held still. Frustration filled him, made more intense by the flash of hope being ripped away. Why doesn’t she do something? he wondered. Anything. Cry, get help from someone else, bite me so I die of poison… anything other than this unbearable frozen inaction.

  As he glared at Ikara he noticed that the tail lying on the jungle floor had begun to slide away. Then he realised that she was not uncoiling but enlarging. Fast. In one minute Ikara had doubled in width and length.

  ‘That’s impressive. But scary,’ said Alex.

  ‘Would you prefer me puny and useless?’

  ‘No, but I’m not exactly used to snakes yet. Particularly giant ones.’

  ‘Frankly, I’m not entirely comfortable with humans. Even moderate-sized ones.’

  Alex leaned forward on to his arms, concentrating on breathing slowly, trying to calm the crashing waves of fear in his head.

  Within another minute a massive snake lay before Alex, its body as wide as a football. Two vast discs of green flecked with gold gazed, unblinking, at him.

  ‘Stay still while I slide around you,’ said Ikara, her voice deeper and stronger.

  Slithering forward Ikara coiled the upper part of her body round Alex’s torso, the great head swaying past inches from Alex’s face. Her skin didn’t feel slimy, as he had expected – more like the roughness of chain mail. Her tail encircled the closest tree.

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nbsp; ‘Brace yourself.’ Ikara contracted, snapping tight like whipcord, forcing the air out of Alex’s lungs in a whoosh. Her body hauled against the mud.

  Pressure built up in Alex’s chest as his airless lungs compressed agonisingly. Oxygen starvation gripped his brain, making stars dance in front of his eyes. In a reflex attempt at survival his hands tore at Ikara’s body, but uselessly. He had no breath to shout for release, despite the pain. The sounds of the jungle floated away as Alex started to slide into oblivion.

  With a huge squelch she wrenched him free. As Alex flew out, the tenacious goo fell away from his lower body like the unclasping of a straitjacket. He still couldn’t breathe, but even on the verge of unconsciousness he was aware of being free of the slime.

  A second later, total-body agony ripped away the joy of escape as he crashed on to solid ground. Ikara relaxed, releasing his chest. Heavy breaths filled Alex’s tortured lungs – air burning his throat, the taste of blood in his mouth. For a moment his body hurt too much for him to care that he was still alive.

  ‘Exciting,’ said Ikara.

  Despite being numb from shock, his brain registered that her voice seemed normal. Dazed, Alex raised his head. Facing him lay not the vast monster who had rescued him, but the usual four-metre version.

  ‘How did you do that?’ he asked, voice hoarse.

  ‘Genetic ability from my mother’s side. It’s a rare power.’

  Slowly Alex rolled on to his back then sat up, wincing. ‘How big can you get?’

  ‘About five times that size. So tell me, what were you doing in the depths of the jungle?’

  ‘Food. I was starving.’

  Green flecked eyes surveyed the trees beyond. ‘Were you aiming for that purple fruit over there?’

  ‘Yes. It smells amazing.’

  ‘Extremely poisonous.’

  Even through his pain the irony got to Alex. ‘Fantastic. So having been squeezed to within an inch of suffocation and being catapulted on to rock-like ground, I’m now supposed to be grateful that I fell into a deadly man-eating mud pit?’

  ‘As it happens, yes.’ Ikara coiled as she spoke.

  Wearily, Alex picked himself up from the ground. From his hips down, both legs were covered in what appeared to be tar. His muscles ached as if he had run a marathon. Pain shot through his lungs each time he took a deep breath. ‘By the way, thanks. Body-crushing is a real winner compared to a one hundred per cent, full-on death experience.’

  ‘No problem,’ replied Ikara. ‘There will probably be worse on the way to the sapphire. I’d give you a lecture on the dangers of the jungle, but I’m too shattered.’

  ‘I can empathise with shattered. Also ripped, broken, bruised, mauled and terminally spooked. I’ll never trust mud again.’

  ‘We’d better go back to Tariq’s clearing. I’ll meet you there with some food.’ In a murmur she added, ‘Novice.’

  Shoving his aching body through dense undergrowth, Alex eventually made it to the path. Legs weighed down by thickly-caked jeans, he plodded to the river.

  Not bothering to undress, Alex walked straight into the shallows, swinging round to lie with his head on the bank. Cold water swirled past him, healing, strengthening. He pulled up his shirt to see the snake damage. An angry red band encircled his chest, swollen and grazed. A small price to pay for life, he thought.

  He was lying on the bank drying in the sun when Ikara reappeared, a bunch of red bristly fruits suspended from her mouth by the stalk. ‘Orton. Try one. It’s a pain getting rid of the husk, but the fruit inside is worth the aggro.’

  Starving, Alex ripped several open. Munching contentedly, savouring the exquisite taste, he chose two of the biggest and shoved them in a pocket for Skoodle. As he demolished the rest of the pile Ikara slid away, reappearing a few minutes later, tail wrapped round a large green fruit.

  ‘More food. Great.’

  ‘Wrong. It’s a giffrod. To drink. The juice is fantastic.’

  Using a jagged flint, Alex cut into the emerald shell to find a sea of pale green fluid. He handed it over to Ikara. ‘Want some?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Alex watched as mouthfuls of fluid passed down the snake’s neck like a row of ping-pong balls. Once Ikara had finished Alex reached forward to drink. A sudden thought struck him. He halted with the giffrod almost to his lips. ‘You’re not a venomous snake, are you?’

  ‘Not my style to rescue you from the mud and then poison you.’

  Alex lifted the giffrod back up, and then paused. ‘By the way, I’m not venemous either.’

  ‘I’ve realised that, although you were poisonous after Virida blew through.’

  ‘History. And it was both of us.’ Alex finished the juice in one hit.

  ‘Agreed. You’d better get back to the beach before it gets dark. I’ll leave some fruit by your boat later.’

  On arriving at the beach Alex found Skoodle shredding the lifeboat instruction manual for a nest. Over a shared tin of cold macaroni he told Skoodle about nearly dying in the mudswamp. After Skoodle had finished laughing they settled down to watch the deep orange and red tropical sunset.

  Eventually Alex turned his attention to the emergency box, pulling the large hunting knife and a waterproof torch from its interior and putting both in the rucksack with the netbook. ‘That’s it. Packing done. Better turn in,’ he said. ‘No sun equals no light, as I don’t want to use up the torch batteries.’

  Skoodle finished the last orton and wiped the juice off his face on to Alex’s jeans. ‘You could have packed a few extra. You’re a failure at this survival stuff, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oddly enough, I didn’t expect to be cast adrift. You?’

  ‘Nope. Not a usual hamster experience, so Uncle Toomba tells me.’

  Alex picked up Skoodle and climbed over the edge of the boat. ‘At least I got us to shore.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Like it was you, not the tide. Anyway… good going, Weston. Positive score: three new friends. Negative: five death sentences. Looks like the opposition wins.’

  ‘Not yet, they don’t. It takes more than a talking smoke column to muscle me out of the picture.’

  ‘Even if it’s really an angry witch bristling with evil spells?’

  ‘I’m still fighting,’ replied Alex, settling himself on the hard floor. ‘Step one: find sapphire. Step two: break curse. Step three: have hamster’s jaws wired together.’

  ‘That wouldn’t work. Remember thought transference?’

  ‘Blast all weird perceptions. Why did my parents come to this bizarre place? What was wrong with Brighton?’

  ‘Limited opportunities for explorers. Sleep tight, death-curse brother.’

  CHAPTER 8

  When Alex woke the next day every particle of his body ached after yesterday’s mud wrestle. Exhausted, he tried to roll over and snooze a bit more but the boards at the bottom of the boat were too hard to let him recapture his dream. Irritatingly, Skoodle lay snoring beside him. Eventually Alex gave up trying to sleep. He crawled forward, pushed up the edge of the tarpaulin and clambered out.

  Dawn was breaking, the likes of which he had never seen. The sky hung in a citrus palette, sweeping from palest lemon to the scarlet heart of a rose grapefruit. Gradually soft blue crept in, deepening until the sky became rich turquoise.

  Alex mulled over life as he watched the colours change, sipping from a giffrod. So this was the world his parents had been exploring: one of magic, danger and intrigue. They might have been proud of him for finding his way to the island. He doubted that they would have been quite so pleased about landing a death sentence within twenty-four hours of arrival. Thinking of his parents gave him a familiar ache in his chest – unpleasant, but oddly welcome.

  Deciding to try for another nap, Alex pulled the tarpaulin over his head and fell asleep. A gentle knocking woke him later. ‘Come in,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Come out,’ said Ikara.

  Alex pulled back the corner of the tarpaulin and found himself i
nches away from Ikara’s nose. In her mouth she held a large bunch of fentice.

  ‘You look half asleep,’ she said, dropping the fruit. ‘It’s been daybreak for hours. Either you’re very lazy or you were badly hurt yesterday.’

  ‘Bit of both,’ replied Alex, rubbing his eyes. ‘Even so, not many humans would naturally get up with the sun.’

  ‘Odd,’ said Ikara, helping herself to a fentice. ‘Must add that to my list of facts about humans. Number one: smart alecs, or Alexs, shouldn’t be let loose alone in the jungle, especially when hungry. Fact two: humans believe that if some fruit is edible, all must be. Fact three: humans are not logical. Seems there’s a link there.’

  ‘Cut the lecture. Hand over a fentice,’ replied Alex, draped over the wooden side.

  ‘Make it two,’ said a small voice as Skoodle scrambled over the side of the boat and dropped on to the sand.

  ‘Done, rodent.’ Ikara flicked a fentice at Skoodle. It hurtled straight into his stomach, bowling him on to his back. Skoodle scrambled to his feet and threw it back at her. Ikara took the hit on her head, dramatically flinging herself backwards on to the sand where she lay groaning.

  ‘Hardly seems possible,’ said Skoodle. ‘Fewer legs but acres more sarcasm.’

  ‘You two could form a mutual dislike society. After a while you might get to like each other.’

  ‘Yeah, like a vampire loves a neck,’ muttered Skoodle.

  ‘No, more than that,’ replied Ikara, shuddering the sand off. ‘Like my stomach acid adores fresh protein.’

  ‘Don’t wind me up. I may be small but I’m fierce.’

  ‘Terrified,’ squealed Ikara. ‘Keep him away, Alex. Don’t let him hurt me.’

  ‘Peace and harmony,’ said Alex. ‘Or I’ll thump you both. So… anyone for fentice?’

  An hour later they joined the others in Tariq’s clearing. Keeko was hopping from one leg to the other as if standing in a bed of nettles.

  ‘Go get yourself mango,’ Alex told Keeko. ‘It’ll take your mind off things.’

  ‘It won’t,’ said Keeko. She set off for the nearest tree, pulled off a huge mango and dropped back to the ground, chewing on it unpeeled.