The Serpent's Secret: Chapters 17–24

That was all the incentive I needed to urge Snowy to go faster.

Could I be imagining it, or did they look more like lovesick demonic cheerleaders than marauding murderers?

They said this with a tittering that sounded, for all the world, the way that Jovi and her gang sounded when they were talking about their favorite TV stars and pop singers.

In hindsight, I’ll admit, insulting lovesick demoness fangirls probably wasn’t the smartest decision I’ve ever made.

“You don’t know how to leave a good thing alone, do you?” Neel griped.

Fists raised to protect my face, I rounded the foliage with careful steps and then jumped.

We finally stopped beside an old gnarled tree with a lot of knobbly branches, and I looked at him, confused.

After I managed to pull myself up to the lowest branch, Neel clambered up behind me.

“No, a kiwi!” I said, but poor Tuntuni just kept burbling, “We’re going to die, we’re going to die,” at regular, demoralizing intervals.

The dank underwater air, not to mention my own overwhelming sense of doom, was making me shiver, and I wondered if all this gabbing was Neel’s way of dealing with his own nervousness.

“Bad news—it’s being guarded by the most humongous python I’ve ever seen.”
I peeked from behind his broad back and had to stifle a yelp.

“It’s impossible!” The talking bird was totally histrionic. “Impossible, I tell you!”

In fact, it was on him now, and even though he fought its parries with his sword, he couldn’t seem to injure it.

At the time, I couldn’t figure what I’d need them for. But now I was glad for his forethought.

The snake was bucking and writhing underneath me, and it wasn’t that easy to concentrate.

“Take your time, there, Prin-cess,” Neel gasped from somewhere within the python’s coils. He was turning an unbecoming shade of purple.

Of course, the respite wasn’t for too long. The snake’s muscular body bunched and swayed as it tried to free itself, or at least ditch me onto the floor.

“Come on,” Neel coaxed. “You’ve got to trust me. Like it or not, we’re in this together.”

I hadn’t thought much about them, but assumed that when I saw them, I would feel some sort of sibling connection. Instead, all I felt was revulsion. And fear.

“I see you have met my son Naga,” the Serpent King hissed. “I am Sesha, King of the Serpents, guardian of the primordial ocean of divine nectar, keeper of time.”

“You will thank me.” The Serpent King raised his arms above his head. “You will thank me for sparing you from a life of drudgery and giving birth to your inner glory!”

We all stared at the broken bottle like participants in a strange wax-museum tableau. The king, the bird, the prodigal daughter, the looming serpent, and his princely prey.

We all stared at the broken bottle like participants in a strange wax-museum tableau. The king, the bird, the prodigal daughter, the looming serpent, and his princely prey.

But then a thick gray smoke swirled out of the shattered glass. It wrapped itself like a never-ending sari around the throne room, circling the pillars, weaving through the furniture, threading its wispy form above and below the throne.

There was something really annoying about a boy who never seemed tired, even after fighting a passel of poisonous snakes, then getting half drowned.

But Neel didn’t laugh or point or even say useless platitudes about how the bird had lived a full life. How everything would be okay.

Tentatively, I ran my fingers in the sea. Then I scooped my hand back into the boat.

We pulled the boat onshore as quietly as we could, hiding it beneath some dried palm fronds.

Beyond the beach, there was evidence of wanton destruction everywhere.

A raucous, bawdy, and yet horrifying singing filled the bitter air.

A raucous, bawdy, and yet horrifying singing filled the bitter air.

“Huum-humm hoam! Let’s plunder and roam!” said one group.
“Gumm-guum gaam! Let’s go home!” said another.

I looked desperately around too, and then my eyes alighted on the oil lamps.

As the monsters ran pell-mell out of the clearing, we all sank to the floor of the hut.

“Some nanas knit or cook; his eats flesh!” Tuntuni quipped.