Shadowgate

19 – The Sister of the North

It was a nightmare. A nightmare of hissing snakes. And deep within the nightmare was evil so strong that it should have frozen Lief, mind and body.

But already he was empty of feeling. Already he was beyond fear.

He struggled to regain his feet, slashing wildly around him with his sword. Snakes thrashed around him, waist deep. He waited for the first, stinging pain that would tell him the fight was over. He wondered if it had already come, and he simply had not felt it.

The Masked One bent over the pit, the emerald mask gleaming, expressionless.

‘Bede did not deserve my love!’ the voice rasped. ‘Seven years ago he stumbled into my castle, with my sister fainting in his arms. How he stared when he saw me, and realised whose magic had led him through the wilderness! He had his chance, then, to cast Mariette aside, and pledge himself to me. He did not take it.’

Lief could hear the snakes hissing in a frenzy, but the pressure around his waist and legs had eased.

He glanced down, and with slow surprise saw that the creatures were frantically arching their bodies away from him. Those that could were hurling themselves at the sides of the pit. They were trying to climb up the seeping walls, falling back, piling one upon the other in a tangled, squirming ring.

The Masked One had noticed nothing. Words were still tumbling through the cruel, slitted emerald mouth on gusts of panting breath.

‘Even when Bede saw the wonder I had become in the year of my exile—even when I offered him a place by my side—he recoiled from me! He deserved to die.’

Part of Lief’s mind heard the words. Another part was still puzzling over why the snakes were fleeing him.

Then, like a dream, the memory of another hissing, dominating voice drifted in his mind.

Remove the thing you wear under your clothes. Cast it away.

It was a memory of Reeah, the giant snake which had once guarded the City of the Rats, in the heart of Deltora.

Lief grew very still. Feeling began to return to him. He pressed his fingertips to the Belt. They tingled. And at the same time, his mind awoke.

Reeah, for all its greatness, had feared the Belt of Deltora. Especially it had feared the ruby, the antidote to snake venom. How much more must these lesser snakes fear it?

And now that the ruby dragon had awoken, the gem was at its full strength. No wonder the snakes were being driven to madness!

There is still a chance, Lief thought. A chance that I can live to destroy the Sister of the North. If only…

He looked up at The Masked One hissing at the top of the pit. He remembered who hid behind the mask, and what he knew of her. He took a firmer grip on his sword and forced a mocking smile.

‘So Bede deserved to die, Kirsten!’ he said, putting all the contempt he could muster into his voice. ‘Yet you kept him alive for seven years. And why? Because his voice still had power over you.’

‘His songs entertained me,’ said The Masked One coldly.

‘Oh no, it was far more than that,’ jeered Lief. ‘It was because when he sang you remembered what it was to be human. You remembered how to feel. And that was what you longed for. Relief from the cold emptiness growing inside you. A chance to weep for all you had lost.’

‘I—’ The Masked One seemed to choke. Then suddenly it shimmered, and it was Kirsten who was leaning over the pit—Kirsten, in her white robe, her great braid of yellow hair dangling, her beautiful face twisted with rage.

‘I regret nothing!’ she shrieked, gripping the edge of the pit and leaning over even further. ‘I was always more beautiful, more talented, more admired, than Mariette! How could Bede have preferred her? How dared he prefer her?’

Now, Lief thought and thrust his sword upward.

He moved fast, but something else was faster. Before the point of his sword was halfway to Kirsten’s white throat, a huge snake had twined around her dangling rope of yellow hair and was wriggling upward.

Kirsten screamed and tried to jerk her head back. But it was too late. Already another snake had caught hold of the braid, and another, and another.

In seconds the rope of hair was a mass of snakes writhing desperately up to freedom. The weight dragged Kirsten’s head down and pinned her, screaming, to the edge of the pit.

By the time Lief staggered back, stunned and horror-struck, she had become a living lifeline. The pit was emptying as snakes in their hundreds swarmed to freedom over her head, neck and shoulders.

And as the pit emptied, Lief’s strength ebbed away. He could feel it as surely as if it blood were draining from his veins.

His limbs were trembling and heavy. It was hard to keep his head upright. He could barely keep his eyes from closing. His mind was clouding.

The Sister of the North was being uncovered. Its song was growing louder. Its poison and malice were battering him like crashing waves.

Despair and die.

He forced himself to look up. Kirsten was covered in a wriggling, hissing mass of scaly flesh. And as she screamed and struggled, the panicking snakes struck at her again and again and again.

She is protected…

So Jasmine had said. But the snakes were striking in their hundreds. Their fangs were like needles. And with every tiny needle scratch, another drop of poison seeped into Kirsten’s helpless body. She would take a long time to die.

Sickness churned in Lief’s stomach. He looked down again.

There was only one snake left in the pit. And it was no snake at all. Pale and bloated, striped with thin lines of poisonous yellow, the thing thrashed mindlessly on the stinking, seeping rock.

It had no eyes. It had no tongue. It had no fangs. But evil radiated from it like heat. And from its empty, gaping mouth poured the deadly song of the Sister of the North, filling Lief’s ears and his mind, forcing him to his knees.

He told himself he had to move. He had to raise his sword. He had to try to smash the thing. Destroy it. But its evil was killing him. Its song of despair and death was ringing in his ears, drowning out all other sound. With a dull clang, his sword fell from his hand.

His fingers would not move. His hands felt as if they did not belong to him. Gritting his teeth, he lifted them. They felt like heavy lumps of dough attached to his arms. Clumsily he pressed them against the Belt of Deltora.

He felt heat. Strong, beating heat. Heat far greater than he had expected. Not just in his hands, but in the Belt itself.

Confused, he looked down. His hands were shining green. A blaze of bright green was streaming between the fingers, lighting up the dark.

Dark… why was it dark? Lief forced his head back, looked up. The tower room was dim, as though the windows had been curtained by cloud.

He could just make out the figure of Kirsten slumped over the edge of the pit. And dimly he could see the snakes. They were fleeing, slithering off Kirsten’s body and away, out of sight.

What…?

Lief’s heart was thudding like a drum in his chest. His fingers were hot, burning hot. He tilted his head a little more. He looked higher. Up to the high, dim roof of the tower.

Then, suddenly, astoundingly, there was an ear-splitting crack—and the roof was gone.

Suddenly there was nothing above him but boiling clouds… and a vast, gleaming shape plunging towards him, green as the emerald glowing beneath his hands, roaring like thunder.

The emerald dragon!

The wind of the dragon’s wings beat Lief down, flattening him against the floor of the pit. Mighty talons reached for him, closed about him and lifted him into the air.

Weak as an infant, Lief rolled helplessly within the cage of the talons. All about him was open sky. The walls and roof of the tower room had been cracked away like the top of an egg, and thrown to the howling winds.

All that remained was the stone floor, Kirsten’s sprawled body, and the pit.

The dragon did not speak. Its emerald eyes, burning like green fire, were fixed on the thing still thrashing in the pit.

But there was no need for words. For Lief could hear the dragon’s heart beating, loud as thunder, thudding into his mind, crashing through the relentless song of the Sister of the North.

He took one hand from the emerald in the Belt of Deltora and seized one of the talons that caged him. He felt the talon’s razor-sharp edge cut into his hand, felt the warm blood begin to flow. But he only tightened his grip.

And with fierce joy he saw green flame gush from the dragon’s roaring jaws. He saw the vile thing at the bottom of the pit writhing in a pool of emerald fire.

Again the dragon roared, and again, till the pit was a furnace of swirling flame. The rock blackened, then began to glow.

Searing heat billowed upward. Lief cringed away from it, tried to roll himself into a ball to escape from it.

But still he gripped the dragon’s talon with his left hand, and the great emerald with his right. And still the power flowed through him from one to the other. And still the dragon roared, and the pit burned.

The song of the Sister of the North rose to a cracked, piercing wail. It faltered. It stopped. A blinding flash of white light burst through the emerald flame.

There was a moment’s breathless silence, as though the land was holding its breath.

Then there was a long, low groaning sound. And the next instant, the air was filled with dust—blinding dust as fine as powder, swirling in the wind. Lief screwed his eyes shut, coughing and choking.

He heard the dragon hiss, as if with satisfaction. Then he felt the wind rushing past his ears as it dropped down, straight down, to the ground.

When Lief opened his eyes, he was sure that he was dreaming.

Above him, two dark shapes loomed against a background of hazy blue sky. A gentle breeze blew on his face. Someone was holding his hand.

‘Lief!’

He blinked. Slowly his eyes focused and he realised that the shapes were faces. Smiling faces.

Jasmine and Barda were bending over him. Kree was perched on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli was nuzzling into her neck, his tiny paws clutching her tangled hair.

Lief stared. Now he knew he was dreaming. Tears burned in his eyes as he waited for the vision to tremble and disappear.

But it did not.

‘It was an enchantment,’ Jasmine whispered, putting her arms around him. ‘The spell was broken. We awoke—here.’

‘And the castle was dust,’ said Barda. ‘Nothing but dust, blowing in the wind.’ He leaned forward. ‘Lief, surely this means—?’

Dizzy with joy, yet still hardly daring to believe it, Lief nodded. ‘The Sister of the North is no more,’ he said huskily. ‘And I think Kirsten died at the same moment. It was because—the emerald dragon returned. It—’

‘We saw it,’ Barda said grimly. ‘It dropped you onto the ground with us, then flew away. Perhaps we will see it again. But I would be more than happy not to. It had a stern, fierce eye.’

‘It is the dragon of honour,’ Lief muttered. ‘It came to clean its land of evil, as was its duty. But I fear it is still angry, because we brought another dragon to its place.’

‘It can be as angry as it wishes,’ Jasmine grinned. ‘It did its part, that is all that counts. It did its part, and you did yours, Lief! The Sister is gone. All Kirsten’s sorcery is undone. And we are not the only ones to rejoice. Look!’

She pointed. Lief turned his head.

The castle of the Masked One had vanished.

Where its towers and turrets had risen to the sky, lay a great sheet of smooth, flat rock powdered with fine dust. Two figures stood in the centre of the rock, hand in hand. One was Bede. The other was a slender young woman with long, light brown hair.

‘When the spell was broken, Mariette was freed, just as we were,’ said Jasmine. ‘The dust cleared, and she was standing there. She had been enchanted—imprisoned in her own locket, which Kirsten had taken for herself. But you must have known that, Lief, or why did you take the locket at all?’

The locket! Lief plunged his hand into his pocket and winced. He had forgotten that his hand was cut and bleeding. He felt around with his fingers, but the locket was not there.

‘Filli has it,’ Jasmine said softly. ‘Do you not remember? You gave it to him for safekeeping, when you thought you would not survive. You told him to take it out of the castle. And so he did. He has been waiting to return it to you.’

‘Indeed,’ said Barda. ‘He would not give it up to anyone else—even Mariette. The emerald dragon is not the only one in this land who values honour.’

Proudly Filli climbed down from Jasmine’s shoulder, uncurled his paw and tipped the locket into Lief’s waiting hand.

Lief opened the locket. Inside, as he had expected, was a small painting of Bede.

‘Jasmine, your dagger?’ he asked.

Jasmine passed the dagger to him. Gently, using the dagger’s point, Lief prised the little picture out.

And behind it, pressed into the back of the locket, was a small pad of tightly folded paper. Lief picked it out in turn and carefully unfolded it.

Together the companions stared at the grim name of their next goal, and noted how far away it was. They stared at the new lines of verse, wondering what they meant. But no-one said a word, and after a few moments Lief folded the paper again, and thrust it deep into his pocket.

They all knew that, all too soon, he would have to take it out again. Soon they would have to travel on, and face whatever dangers might come.

Troubling questions would have to be faced, too. How, despite all their secrecy, had the guardian of the north known where they were, almost every step of the way? Why did the Masked Ones hate the king so bitterly? Where had Laughing Jack gone? Would they see him again? Was he still a threat to them?

But this—this moment under the hazy blue sky—was not a time for plans and questions, but for rejoicing.

They were safe. The dread song of the Sister of the North had been silenced forever. At last, the land of the north could throw off its mask of death, and begin to live again.

For now, that was all that mattered.