Then I heard Neel’s familiar voice cut through the darkness like a lifeline. “Hey, slimeball, where’s your precious python jewel?”
The serpent hissed and slithered away from me. I heard it move down to the other end of the underwater cave.
My grip was slipping, but I desperately hung on. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to see my parents again. I wanted to hang out with Zuzu again. I even wanted to argue with Neel again.
Then the cavern was filled with a wailing as the snake, searching for its jewel, found instead the point of Neel’s sword. The cries were horrible—high-pitched and almost human. There was a thrashing sound like a giant drum being beaten on the ground. But in a few minutes, all was silent.
As quickly as there had been darkness, there was light. Neel cleaned some of the dirt from the jewel’s surface, allowing it to shine once more like an unnatural, underground sun. I’d never been so happy to see.
The python’s giant body lay still, oozing dark blood on the cavern floor. Trying to reach its jewel, it had instead split itself in two on Neel’s sword. Neither of us had been strong enough to harm it, but it was strong enough to kill itself.
I breathed a very long sigh of relief, and slid down my rope. Unfortunately, it stopped what felt like a bazillion miles too short of the ground.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
Neel, now holding the muddy python jewel, was standing under where I hung.
“Let go,” he said.
I shook my head, unable to move.
“Come on,” Neel coaxed. “You’ve got to trust me. Like it or not, we’re in this together.”
Did I trust Neel? It was hard to say. One moment I felt like strangling him, the next, one of us was saving the other’s life. At the very least, until we rescued our families, we were partners. And I guess that deserved some trust.
“I suppose we half monsters have got to stick together.”
We had a lot in common, Neel and I, even if I didn’t like to admit it.
I let go. It wasn’t like one of those scenes in a movie, where the princess floats lightly into the waiting hero’s arms. I was more like an anvil that comes plummeting down on a cartoon character’s head. I fell, like a graceful barbell, right on top of Neel.
Squelch. We both sank even farther into the mud.
“You did ask for it.” I swiped some silt from my face.
“Yeah.” Neel grinned through the dirt. “I guess I did.”
Unfortunately, the muddy moment was shattered by the sound of a terrible hissing that sent shivers up my spine far worse than any darkness.
“Welcome home,” seven voices hissed, “Sssissster.”
The seven-headed cobra towered above us, bobbing and swaying. His scaly green skin shimmered in the light of the python jewel, which was now knotted into its muscular tail. Dimmer lights shone from each of seven smaller jewels sitting on each of its seven heads. As it danced its twisting dance, I saw reflected, seven times over, the same U-shaped marking on my upper arm. Like two cruel eyes that had been staring at me my whole life.
It was terrifying and horrible and a bit fascinating all at the same time.
When I heard the story of the moon maiden’s seven stolen sons from “Danavi,” somehow I assumed that my seven brothers were turned into seven snakes. Now I realized they were each of seven heads attached to one powerful serpent body.
The magic snake hissed as I moved right. It flicked out its seven forked tongues as Neel moved left. With a hissing and a bumping, it forced us both to walk straight ahead. And in this way, my brothers escorted us, none too politely, out of the cavern and into the Serpent King’s throne room.
“A plan,” Neel muttered as we shuffled side by side, shoved along by the seven-headed snake. “We need a getaway plan. Like right now.”
“What do we do?”
“I’m thinking. I’m thinking.” Neel’s voice was desperate. “I don’t suppose you have any good ideas?”
“If I did, would I be asking you?”
Tuntuni, for once, was unable to speak. He shook like a—well—like a feather in my arms.
Not that he didn’t have good reasons. After the emptiness of the jewel cavern, the throne room was a shock. It positively writhed with snakes. Snakes carpeted the floors, hung from the ceilings, wrapped around the pillars, and decorated the light fixtures. Even the enormous throne at the end of the room was made of writhing, hissing, green, black, yellow, and brown serpent bodies.
And among all those slithering snakes, hundreds of jewels of all shapes and sizes. Each serpent seemed to be protecting one. None were as big as the python jewel that the seven-headed cobra had taken from us, but the serpents were hoarding untold riches down here in their underwater kingdom.
Almost in unison, they all bared their fangs as we entered the room.
“Frightened, Sssissster?” the cobra’s seven heads hissed as one. “You shhhould be!”
I’d just come face-to-face for the first time with my brothers—well, what used to be my brothers anyway. 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. The cobra didn’t seem to hold too much brotherly love for me either. With a hiss, it pushed us again toward the throne.
“Father, ssseee what I have brought you!” I could clearly hear the eagerness to impress the king in all seven of those voices.
We had no choice but to move forward. My seven-headed band of brothers were baring their fangs right behind us.
But so too were the serpents in front of us. They slithered forward, hissing, winding themselves around our arms and legs, hanging over our heads from the ceiling. It was like a horrible nightmare. At first I tried not to scream as I felt their cold skin slip across mine—but soon I couldn’t control myself. Slip—a snake was climbing up my shin. Squeeze—another wrapped itself across my chest like a purse strap. I couldn’t even see Neel anymore—my vision was entirely blocked by writhing serpents. I thought of Baba and how he had tried to protect me from this. I shut my eyes, trying to imagine myself a little girl again, safe and secure in my father’s arms.
A familiar voice screamed and screamed. It took me a couple of moments to realize it was my own.
After what seemed like hours but must have been minutes, a voice commanded from the end of the room, “Serpents begone! Make a path, and bring them to me!”
The snakes unwound themselves from our bodies. Even the ones in front of us wiggled away, making a clear path from where we stood to the throne.
My skin felt slimy and clammy. I felt shaken and bruised. I shuddered as the seven-headed snake pushed me forward again.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled brokenly to Neel. He reached out and held my damp hand in his own. The warmth of his skin took a small edge off my fear.
“For what?” he breathed.
We walked forward as slowly as we could toward the snake throne.
“He’s my dad. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me.”
“Not true. We needed to find that python jewel.”
“Well, I’m sorry anyway.”
“It’s not your fault,” Neel muttered. “He’s your dark matter.”