The Python of Caspia Read online

Andy sighed.

  “My loyalty wasn’t for sale, Titus. I owe it to someone else first. If I can free her, I will return to your praetor and his punishment.” Andy balked at his own words. He wondered when he had become so brave.

  The mice considered each other for a moment. Titus had a grim set to his jaw, but his eyes showed understanding. Taptalles grasped his cloak and looked away before speaking, “Fair is fair, lad. You fell into our world and had no say. If the worst should happen, you will be remembered with honors—by the Wisps at least; you saved our city.”

  “This is a mistake,” Titus insisted.

  “I don’t suppose a guide or an escort can show me the way.”

  Titus shook his head. “Once you leave, I’ll have broken the law. And as much as I would like to escort you personally, if I lose my position, there will be precious few mice capable of opposing Coriolus. I have a duty to my people. It shames me that I have failed you so.”

  Andy felt his face redden.

  They stood, wordlessly; the cheers from the victorious mice faded as it became clear what was happening.

  Andy turned to go.

  “Wait!” Taptalles stopped him. “Look at the cavern above. Go on, look up.”

  Andy was suddenly suspicious, but he did as he was told. The cavern ceiling, so far above, glittered with the brilliance of an ocean sunset. Waves of color crashed into each other, shimmering as they collided.

  “There!” Taptalles climbed up to Andy’s shoulder and pointed. “See the amber vein flowing there?”

  Andy spotted the barest trace of amber hues lost amid the others, but he could see it. “Yes, but it’s hard to make out.”

  “It doesn’t matter, as long as you can follow it. The pulses of color will get stronger the closer you are to the Howe.”

  I can follow the colors? Andy watched the ceiling for a moment, wondering what the other colors meant.

  “What is the Howe?” He finally asked.

  “The ancient home of the Python.” Taptalles answered, apprehension in his voice.

  Titus shook his head at the conversation and crossed his arms.

  Taptalles couldn’t hide the desperation he felt. “Don’t speak to the monster if you can help it—it will try to entrance you.”

  “The beast is vicious, but it has its own ethics. It won’t break a compact.” Titus countered.

  “Ethics?” Taptalles blustered, but Titus held up a paw to calm his friend.

  “Beast?” Andy remembered the eyes he saw in the vision sent from the Twister. “It’s a giant snake,” Andy said, shivering.

  “You don’t have to go!” Titus called as Andy turned to the amber. “Follow the silver back to Sentinel’s Watch! Undo this mistake!” Titus called out.

  Andy looked back for a moment. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  With his goodbye said, Andy left Cair Fromage. He kept his eyes on the path and avoided the hundreds of hurt faces watching him leave.

  His anxiety waned as his legs worked. He felt better moving towards something, even if he wasn’t sure what to expect.

  A shiver climbed up his spine as a warm wind blew through a stand of bare, gnarled shrubs, which grew wild on the far side of the fields surrounding Cair Fromage. He found a road cut through the growth that went in generally the same direction as the amber vein.

  Andy realized the path was cut for creatures far smaller than himself. Cruel barbs on the branches caught his attention.

  He looked back over his shoulder to Cair Fromage and the mice. He wondered how long the shame would linger. He looked away.

  Here goes.

  Arms shielding his face, he plunged down the path.

  “Ow!” Andy batted away the spiky, whip-like branches. He wanted to keep an eye on the cavern above, but every time he glanced up he suffered another cut. He paused to wince at a cut on his arm. He felt suddenly alone, and his stomach sank.

  This is what I wanted. This is what I get. Andy refused to let himself wallow and tore away another branch.

  He pushed himself as quickly as he could, taking care to avoid the worst branches. He stopped for a moment, looking up at the cavern roof.

  No sun here—I can’t tell the time.

  Andy wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but then he laughed. No sun, no way to tell time. This place must be great for procrastinators.

  He struggled forward and found himself staring at a fork in the path. He checked the ceiling again. The amber vein traveled between the two paths; neither offered a better route.

  Looking left and right, his eyes hunted for a clue. His legs started to shake.

  Andy grimaced and picked at random.

  He took a grateful breath and trudged down the right-hand path.

  A few minutes later, he felt vindicated. The path opened, and the shrubs gave way to full-size trees. He strained his eyes to follow the amber and could barely make it out through the foliage, though he was grateful to be free of the thorny branches.

  Andy tripped. A thick root had caught his foot. He stood and saw a shiver ripple through the trees.

  He crouched, ready to spring away, but couldn’t see what shook the leaves.

  He suddenly thought the Twister had found him again. He bounded forward, running through the trees. The branches were quaking and shivering all around. Without thinking, Andy ran.

  Andy looked in every direction for a sign, for anything to explain what he was seeing.

  He kept his eyes on the ground and dodged the thick roots and rocks as he went. It looked like the roots were moving, but he knew it was impossible. He ran until the quivering finally died down. The trees were still thick in every direction. Had he made any errant turns while he was running? He looked up through the branches and caught a glance of the amber.

  I need to get out of these trees.

  Andy took a slight step backwards and his foot slipped into a hole.

  “Not again!” he growled, stumbling backwards and slamming into a tree.

  Andy checked his ankle for a sprain. It didn’t hurt to bend. Grateful, he looked around suspiciously, thinking his luck couldn’t get worse.

  The trunk of the tree he was leaning against began to shift beneath him.

  Andy dashed away and spun about. The tree looked like it was twisting around. A patch of bark, six feet up the trunk, split apart and a single, ocher eye stared at him.

  Andy put his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t know—”

  The tree started shaking.

  No thanks!

  Andy bolted, his heart pounding. He had no idea what they were, but they weren’t trees. Somewhere, deep within, Andy realized that running from these trees was foolish. He nearly skidded to a halt as he approached another shaking tree, before edging around it.

  Andy passed a few more motionless trees and burst out into a field of orange grass. Not caring to stop, he kept running towards a gentle hill, not far off. He slowed as the elevation sharpened, but once he hit the crest of the long, narrow hill Andy was confronted by a horizon filled with a black sea. Far out in the distance, past the sea, the tops of great spires loomed like jagged streaks across the colorful horizon. Forked bolts of lightning played occasionally back and forth between the spires; his eyes strained to make them out at this distance.

  What a nightmare—it’s something worse in every direction.

  He gazed up, hoping to find the amber, but the sky swirled with clouds, and he couldn’t see through them to the ceiling above.

  Andy heard what sounded like a sudden burst of falling hail. He turned back to the forest, and saw it was shaking as far as he could see. He raised a brow, annoyed, and had the vague impression that the not-quite-trees were laughing at him. He felt slightly embarrassed.

  Andy turned and walked down the spine of the hill, away from the forest. He felt suspicious of the orange grass, but, after walking for miles over the hills, he realized the grass wasn’t likely to surprise him with a burst of aggressive waving, though the foxtai
ls did have an affinity for his socks, which had picked up several of the sharp, orange stragglers. Andy considered picking the foxtails from his socks, but looked out on the rolling orange hills, and sighed.

  Further ahead he spied a curiosity on the gray stained shore. For several moments, he doubted his eyes. Yet, minute after minute of walking refused to change what he was seeing.

  Are they ships, or folded pages?

  Andy’s eyes played over what might have been the wreckage of several ships. But instead of cracked beams and tattered sails, he saw the pages of books, torn and somehow folded or inflated into the many forms of these broken ships. It reminded him of origami.

  He rubbed his eyes and looked away for a few moments, hoping that as he got closer things would make more sense.

  A bellowing voice echoed to him on the wind.

  Andy saw a bear of a man darting between the huge sections of torn pages.

  A giant mantis, sectioned in colors of darkest green and glossy black, swiped its serrated claw through the air and tore through a piece of hull. The folded words tore with the sound of ripping cloth and burning letters burst out into the air from the wound. The beast reminded him of the brutox, but taller and lithe.

  Andy gaped as the warrior leaped backwards into the air to avoid a strike.

  He has no weapon—it’ll kill him!

  Andy fished the marble out of his pocket and grasped it in his palm. The burning silver blade burst from his closed fist, just as it had before. He ran towards the fight.

  The warrior had taken hold of a fallen section of page and raised it up like a shield. A serrated claw rent through the page, getting stuck halfway through.

  The man let out a towering laugh as he twisted the page. The mantis squealed as its limb wrenched the wrong way.

  “Ha!” Andy leaped another step forward. The fight was still more than a hundred paces away. The mantis only had to strike out with its other serrated blade and rake the warrior, but the sudden reversal and the pain of the wrenched arm were too much for the mantis.

  With a quick twist, the warrior tore the limb clean off and, in an instant, he tore it free of the page and flipped the arm around, bearing it as his own weapon.

  Andy paused, his eyes wide.

  Stylishly armed, the warrior made quick work of the mantis, and in two strikes had decapitated the beast.

  The warrior lifted the serrated limb to the sky, and bellowed. His resonant cry sounded more like a crazed laugh the longer it went on.

  Looks like he has it well—in hand.

  Andy grimaced at the pun, and wished Dean, or his father, was here to endure it. The warrior disappeared back into the wreckage of the ships, and Andy thought back to his time with Dean.

  What’s wrong with me? If Dean was here, he’d be clawing his eyes out.

  Light from above caught Andy’s attention. He saw the clouds had parted. A large vein of amber coursed through green and blue. He was getting closer.

  Andy wanted to stay and talk to the warrior. He wanted to look at the wreckage and try to figure out what was going on with the pages.

  With a disappointed face he turned and jogged back up the crest of the hill. He looked over his shoulder and spotted the large man working to join the pages.

  Jogging felt good and he kept it up. The sea breeze was refreshing, and the fields of orange grass waved gently. He reached out and felt the foxtails brush against his palms. He tried to avoid looking out across the sea, but even that ominous horizon held an otherworldly beauty. Whether minutes or hours had passed, he couldn’t guess, but the next time he looked up, the cavern ceiling was mostly amber.

  Wait—

  He dug into his back pocket and found his cell.

  This whole time? I’ve had this—

  He sighed, shaking his head.

  He was about to unlock it, but paused, not wanting to see the dozens of inevitable messages and missed calls from his parents.

  He felt the sudden urge to throw his phone into the sea.

  I don’t need to know what time it is, and I’m in more trouble than—

  He couldn’t possibly quantify how much trouble he was in.

  To hell with it.

  He put his cell back in his pocket and continued. Let’s keep dreaming; it’s too good to wake up. He laughed at himself as he went. I’ll probably scream and wake up when the next giant bug swipes my head off.

  Further ahead he saw a vineyard. He was suddenly hungry and eyed the bundles of unwatched grapes. Andy sneaked up to the rickety stands. He plucked two bunches of red grapes and felt guilty.

  He stood tall and looked around for someone to pay, but there was no one in sight. He took out his wallet and found a five-dollar bill. He rolled it up and stuck it firmly in the wooden stand before heading closer to the coast.

  He knew that no one here could probably use the money, but the owner might find the bill and consider it a curiosity. That alone made Andy feel better.

  He gorged himself on the grapes and leaned back in the grass. He felt his eyelids dropping, but was too tired to do anything about it.

  Andy rolled over and realized that his back hurt.

  How long have I been lying down? Did I sleep?

  He got up and stretched. Looking around, nothing seemed different, and that made him uncomfortable. He rushed back to the path on the hillcrest and continued on.

  Minutes or hours later, he came on a circular hollow dug into a grassy embankment above the shore. A ramshackle wooden tower stood in the center of the circle. A black banner covered in stars and featuring an open palm containing a purple orb hung loosely from a pole. Nearby was another banner. This second banner was covered in amber scales and featured a viper’s eye. Andy shuddered, knowing he was getting closer to Letty, and whatever had her.

  The perimeter of the circle was lined with doorways. A few shimmered, each with its own color, but most were blank or covered in wooden planks. A jagged script was etched on the planks above each portal. The letters flickered and looked like shining purple quicksilver. He tried to read them, but they weren’t English.

  I saw letters like these outside Ropt’s office. They’re different from the messages Rembrandt left in his paintings though, those were silver. These letters hurt to look at, while the others only make me dizzy.

  His eyes shied away from the script, and settled on the tower, which was considerable, at least three floors high. Andy was certain that something his size had built the tower, and not the mice.

  Staring, Andy realized how oblivious he had been. There was something manning the tower.

  He fell to his hands and knees in the wispy grass. His eyes focused on the watchman. It had the familiar plated and segmented limbs of the brutox, but this one bore the face of a spider. Light glinted off its many eyes. It wasn’t looking his way; it was staring in the opposite direction, and he was certain it had spotted something.

  Lucky for me it was distracted.

  The brutox leveled its crossbow.

  What’s it aiming at?

  Andy spotted movement on a hillside past the circle of portals. He bent low to move stealthily in an arc around the circle. He kept his eyes on the brutox, who was still trained on something.

  “Hail!” a voice called out.

  Andy saw a young man, of an age with him, maybe a few years older. The young man was garbed in a sea green tunic. A cowl of shells covered his head and shoulders, and he carried a barbed trident. It was the second human he had seen, and he looked far more reasonable than the man on the beach.

  A growl came from the tower. Andy saw a bolt fly; it barely missed the young man.

  “Get down, you idiot!” Andy rushed forward and plowed into him, knocking them both into the grass. “Stay low!” The young man tried to straighten his cowl; he didn’t seem nearly alarmed enough.

  Andy peeked through the grass and saw the brutox struggling to work the winch on his crossbow.

  Andy felt an overwhelming impulse to charge the tower.<
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  That’s a foolish idea—isn’t it?

  Before he had finished the thought, he was on his feet and racing towards the wooden watchtower. The beam of light exploded from his hand into a flaming blade and he cut through one of the tower’s legs, then another, and finally a third, all in a matter of seconds.

  He heard a cry as the tower collapsed. The spider-like brutox tumbled across the ground, its many legs flailing as it scrambled to its feet.

  The blade in Andy’s hand sputtered and vanished. He took an exasperated breath and saw his reflection in the brutox’s many eyes.

  It flinched and was staring at the crossbow on the floor.

  Andy dived and grasped for the hardwood stock; the brutox did likewise. They slammed into each other in midair. Andy had a hand on the crossbow, but the spider slapped him heavily across the face.

  Andy laughed at the unexpected attack, but sputtered as the slapping turned into choking.

  Not stopping to check how many spider hands or feet were trying to strangle him, Andy secured the crossbow and bashed the brutox over the head with the heavy weapon.

  The brutox squealed and leaped back. Andy scrambled with the winch and nocked the string. The brutox, bent on its many legs, would have seemed coiled for another strike, if not for the one limb rubbing the sore spot on its brow.

  “Come on, come on!” Andy found the quiver in the tower wreckage and pulled out a bolt. He spared a half-second’s glance at the young man, who was leaning on his trident. “Feel free to jump in any time now, friend!” Andy growled as he loaded the bolt and raised the crossbow.

  The brutox shuffled backwards, looking back and forth between the two humans. In a snap it hopped, with lightning speed, away and into the far grass. Andy watched it leap and bound with immense strength. It spanned the length of a school bus in a single jump.

  Startled by the intense acrobatic display, Andy hardly noticed the young man come up and start rooting through the wreckage.

  Andy looked down at the loaded crossbow and the winch. How did I load it? He had seen the brutox struggle with the winch. But how did I know what to do? I got it on the first—

  A loud crack caught his attention and he saw the young man pull a banner free from the wreckage.