The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

3 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

What is that?” Harp asked curiously.

“You can’t do magic in here,” Liel stated flatly.

“How powerful are you?” Boult demanded loudly.

All three had spoken at the same time, and Verran looked from one face to the next as if trying to decide whom he should answer first. Then he stared at the wet floor, looking very much like a schoolboy who had been caught doing mischief.

“It’s all right. We just don’t understand.” Liel assured him. She peered at the vial clutched in his fist. She could see the ornate golden stopper, but his fingers concealed the rest of the vial.

“It’s just something about the place.” Verran’s voice trembled. “I can feel the old magic.”

“What do you mean?” Liel asked.

“It’s revealing itself to me, just the way it did when I brought down the barrier in the tunnel. It’s revealing how to use it.”

“You know what these creatures were capable of doing,” Boult sputtered. “You’re channeling dark magic. What you’re sensing is death.”

“In death comes rebirth, you know that,” Verran protested.

Boult glared at him. “Is that what your father said? Because that’s how evil mages like to justify brutalizing the innocent.”

“I can break the curse!” Verran insisted. “I can see how to do it in my head!”

“You’re not listening to him, are you?” Boult asked Harp, who had gently laid Kitto back down on the tile floor.

“It takes incredible power to work any magic inside the palace.” Liel told Harp. “And the curse is the product of ancient, potent magic.”

“I couldn’t do it by myself.” Verran held up the vial. “But I can with an elixir.”

“We don’t even know what kind of curse it is,” Liel said, brushing a lock of wet hair off Kitto’s forehead. “We need more information, Harp.”

“Enough!” Harp snarled. “Verran, will he be alive? Truly alive?”

“He will be,” Verran assured him. “He’ll be Kitto again. Just like he was.”

“He doesn’t know that!” Boult fumed. “It could be a trick! Or he’s being misled by whatever is giving him access to his power.”

“I don’t think we can trust …” Liel began.

“Bring him back,” Harp interrupted.

“There will be a price, Harp,” Liel said. “There always is.”

“I don’t care,” Harp said roughly.

“We don’t know where Verran’s power is coming from,” Boult said. “We don’t want Kitto to be used that way.”

“So Kitto died for what … to drain a pool of water?” Harp leaped up and squared off with Boult. Harp’s hands were balled into fists, and his body was rigid with anger. Liel had never seen Harp so furious. Even Boult looked surprised, but he didn’t back away.

“Is that all his life is going to amount to? I took him off the Marderward to die in Hisari? For nothing?”

“He’s not dead!” Boult shouted.

“He might as well be!” Harp shouted back.

“We’ll get the Torque.” Liel quickly moved between them. She laid her hands against Harp’s chest and gently moved him away from Boult. “We’ll save Ysabel from Cardew. We’ll stop Tresco from overthrowing the Queen. And we’ll find a way to help Kitto.”

“Do it, Verran,” Harp ordered. His gaze swung from Boult to Liel. “Kitto would die to save any of you. And he would do it without hesitation.”

Liel let her hands drop to her sides. Harp was going to do whatever he could to help Kitto, and she wasn’t going to convince him that there was a safer way. Even if she could stop him, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Beside her, Boult shook his head in disgust but said nothing more. Verran crouched beside Kitto’s limp body. He loosened the vial’s golden stopper and tipped a drop of the red liquid onto his palm.

“Is that blood?” Boult asked, staring down Verran’s hand.

“Quiet,” Verran commanded. He smeared the blood across Kitto’s blue lips and began chanting in guttural, hissing sounds. If they were words, then none of the others had heard them before. The blood pooled on Kitto’s lips in unnatural droplets and then abruptly seeped into his skin. Angry red lines branched out across his face, traveling down his neck and to his heart. Verran pulled open Kitto’s shirt to reveal his chest. He poured another drop of the elixir on his hand and slammed his open palm onto the skin above Kitto’s heart.

When Verran struck the boy so violently, Liel cried out. The spell she was witnessing was so different than her own healing, which drew on memories of old-growth forests and windswept cliffs, the warm dens of small creatures, and the infinite beauty of life’s detail. Verran’s spell was the antithesis of that. Here was life’s bloodletting, murder in reverse. It called upon every catacomb, every ream of twisted flesh, and every layer of humiliation. That healing could come from such a place made no sense.

Verran jerked his hand away, leaving a bloody handprint on Kitto’s chest. Again, the elixir pooled unnaturally on top of the skin, only it took the shape of a bloody, clawed hand. The clawed fingers rose off Kitto’s chest and plunged deep into his skin. Kitto arched off the floor as the blood-hand clenched around his heart. Still chanting, Verran slammed his fist onto the blood-hand, sending red droplets across Kitto’s body and onto the legs of the people standing nearby. The blood-hand evaporated into the air, and Kitto jerked upright, his head thrown back. His arms were up in a defensive posture, and his eyes rolled into his head.

“Kitto!” Harp said, dropping to the ground beside the boy.

But Kitto’s arms shot out from his side, and his body jerked in seizure. Harp placed his hands behind the boy’s head to keep him from slamming his skull into the tiles.

“Grab his legs,” Harp shouted. But before anyone could move, Kitto became quiet and still. He opened his eyes and looked around in fright.

“Kitto! You’re safe.”

“What happened?”

“You drowned,” Harp said, helping him sit up. “I told you not to drown.”

“I had the worst dream.” Kitto’s eyes were watering, and he blinked rapidly as if to clear his vision. “I was in chains.”

“You’re all right now,” Harp reassured him. “Can you stand up?”

“I was in chains,” Kitto repeated as Harp and Boult helped him to his feet. “And there was an army of serpents.”

Kitto turned to look at the door. The silver stones and lock had vanished, and all that remained was a plain door made from rough-cut, redwood planks. “Did I open the lock?”

“You did a great job,” Harp told him, pressing the case of lockpicks back into Kitto’s hands. “You got rid of the water.”

“I drowned?” Kitto said in amazement.

“No, the pool was cursed,” Liel explained. “But Verran brought you back.”

Harp caught Verran’s eye. Verran had an odd mix of emotions on his face. He looked like he wanted to cry, fight, and hide all at the same time.

“Thank you,” Harp said to Verran.

“I owe you,” Kitto said sincerely.

“Can we leave?” Verran pleaded. “I don’t feel very well.”

“That was quite a spell,” Liel said, picking up Verran’s pack and handing it to him. “You’re going to feel drained for a while. What type of elixir was that?”

“Something my father gave me,” Verran said, his expression suddenly closed.

Boult cleared his throat. “I agree with Verran. Let’s get the Torque and get out as soon as possible.”

They followed the ramp as it curved around the gilded pillar and through the opening in the floor. The ramp ended in a long room with a low, tiled ceiling. Two rows of flared columns supported the ceiling. Raised walkways divided the rectangular room into four shallow pools, each paved in a different color tile-crimson, royal blue, deep green, and violet-that stood out dramatically against the whitewashed walls. Water dripped off the ceiling, a sign that the area had been filled with water before Kitto broke the spell.

“Is it a bathing hall for serpents?” Harp asked. “Look at all the colors. It’s as festive as a carnival.”

“It’s where they incubated their creations,” Liel explained. “The crimson pool was for bleeding out the slaves to feed the new hatchlings.”

“So, not like a carnival,” Boult said.

“Not any carnival I want to go to,” Harp agreed.

While they were talking, Verran wandered up the walkway and crouched down to look at something on the base of one of the columns. The stone pillars had been painted, but the water had eroded most of the plaster and pigment, leaving only clumps of color sticking to the surface.

“What do you think that does?” Verran asked, pointing to a metal square bolted to the wall with a round indentation in the center. “Do you think it’s a trigger?”

“Whatever you do, don’t-” Boult started to say, as Verran reached forward and pushed it. “Touch it.”

“Verran!” Boult shouted angrily as the sound of a metal gear began grinding ominously from somewhere below them. Verran hurried away from the pillar sheepishly as the grinding intensified. A continuous clanking noise that sounded like chains running through a metal pulley echoed against the tiled walls.

“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.

“So the Torque is in there,” Harp said.

“Most likely,” Liel said. “We don’t have a plan of action, do we?”

“Of course not.” Boult said, rolling his eyes. “There’s more chance of lightning striking me dead on a summer day than Harp actually thinking ahead.”

“I have a plan,” Harp protested. “Walk in there and take it.”

“It’s not going to be that easy, and you know it,” Boult chided him.

“Ah, don’t be such a baby,” Harp replied. “They never thought anyone would get past their giant fishbowl. What else could they possibly have put down here?”

“You know you just doomed us,” Boult groaned. “Now there’s going to be something horrible waiting for us on the other side of that pretty little door.”

“Silly Boult,” Harp said dismissively. “As if you can change the world just by saying a few simple words.”

“Have you tried to explain the basics of spellcasting to him?” Boult asked Liel. “How a few simple words can change the world?”

“I’ve tried, but it’s beyond him,” Liel smiled.

“I’m a simple man with simple pleasures,” Harp explained. “I like tools, levers, skin. Things I can put my hands on. None of that ethereal nonsense for me.”

When they opened the pearl door, they saw a cramped anteroom with stone benches carved out of the wall. An eerie red glow illuminated the tiny chamber, but a screen made of blackened wood blocked their view of the corner of the room. Harp put his fingers to his lips, but the aura of tension and malice was so profound, nobody wanted to speak anyway.

Harp moved quietly along the wall until he reached the screen. Peering around the corner, he saw a much deeper chamber, its walls cut from hazy red stone. At the far end of the chamber was an unremarkable wooden pedestal holding a circlet of unpolished silver. But it was the floor of the chamber that captured Harp’s attention. Waves of light rolled off its glassy red surface, and Harp could hear a constant humming noise that made his head ache despite the low-pitched sound.

“The Torque is just sitting there,” Harp whispered as he turned back to the group.

“Do you see anything else?” Liel murmured quietly.

“An ominous floor.”

“What?” Boult whispered in confusion.

“Have a look.” Harp said in a normal voice. There wasn’t anything to disturb besides the Torque.

They walked out from behind the screen and stared at the expanse of red glass that stretched across the floor.

“What makes it glow?” Kitto asked.

“I have no idea,” Liel said, looking worried. “I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“So, should I just walk over there and take it?” Harp asked.

“I don’t think you should step on the glass at all,” Boult cautioned. “In the jungle, isn’t the color red supposed to be a warning to stay away?”

A voice came out of the shadows behind them. “Not for my loyal servants who come bearing the gift I have craved for too long.”

They spun around in unison, their hands on their weapons, as a massive serpentine guardian slithered out of the shadows behind them. An illusion of a brick-and-mortar wall had concealed an empty room where the guardian had lain in wait and kept guard over the Torque. Like the warriors who had captured them at the colony, the guardian had the body of a snake and the torso of a human, but he was more than double the size of the largest ophidian warrior they had encountered so far. The thick plates and scales that covered his body were a mottled yellow and glistened with mineral deposits formed during the eons cloistered in the damp chamber. The guardian wore a jeweled breastplate and gold bands around his upper arms, but his hands were empty of weapons.

“Huh. I guess there was a fish in the fishbowl after all,” Harp said.