He reached the top of the stairs and hauled himself up into a round, stone-floored room. Only then did he look back.
Filli wailed, clinging to his shoulder. The little creature was grieving. Lief raised his hand to comfort him. He knew that was what Jasmine would have wanted. But he could barely feel Filli’s fur. It was as if his fingers were numb.
He stared down into the tunnel, dry-eyed, feeling only a vast emptiness. It was like looking down a chimney—a chimney that was now almost completely blocked, about halfway down, by a misshapen lump of rock.
The tunnel wall had been released from its enchantment. The swollen rock had shrunk back as far as it could, then hardened once more. Its surface was oddly smooth, and it gleamed like a newly-healed wound.
Through the narrow opening that remained of the tunnel, something green, black and white was oozing like slime.
Lief stepped back and looked around. The musky smell was very strong. Through small, round windows he could see storm clouds boiling around the snowy peaks of mountains. He could hear the sound of thunder, and howling wind.
But neither of these was as loud as the song of the Sister of the North, ringing from the bottom of a pit which yawned in the centre of the room.
Lief approached the pit and looked down.
The pit was writhing with snakes, hundreds of them, hissing and spitting, coiling one upon the other.
And the Sister of the North was among them. Lief could hear it. He could feel it.
Carefully he lifted Filli from his shoulder. He walked to one of the round windows and put the little creature on the sill.
‘You can climb trees, Filli,’ he said. ‘So you can escape from this tower. You can get down to the ground. Do you understand me?’
Filli stared at him with bright, unwinking eyes. Lief dug deep into his pocket and brought out the locket, still dangling on its broken chain.
‘I want you to take this with you, and keep it safe,’ he said, pressing the locket into Filli’s paw. ‘Keep it safe for me.’
He had no idea if the little creature understood. He had no idea if there was any point in what he was doing.
He pushed the window open. Wind howled around the tower.
He nodded at Filli. ‘Go!’ he said, waving his hand. ‘Find Kree. Take care.’
Filli put the locket into his mouth and slipped through the window.
Lief closed it after him and walked back to the pit. He stared down at the snakes coiled within it. Rage still burned within him, but cold hopelessness had settled like ice in the pit of his stomach.
He had his sword. His arm was strong. He did not fear pain. He could kill many of the snakes, many…
But he would be dead before he killed them all. The Sister of the North would survive. The Masked One would live, growing in power and wickedness. Deltora would perish. Jasmine and Barda would have died in vain.
Again he looked down.
There was a slithering sound from the side of the room. Slowly he looked around.
The Masked One was rising from the tunnel. Behind the emerald mask, its eyes glowed with triumph.
‘So now I have you, king of Deltora,’ it hissed. ‘I have succeeded where others have failed. The Master has already rewarded me richly. Now I will have power beyond my wildest dreams.’
Lief drew his sword. ‘I hope it is worth it to you, Kirsten,’ he said.
‘I am The Masked One,’ the cold voice whispered. ‘Nothing can stand against me. Soon I will bend the whole of the north to my will.’
‘You are Kirsten of Shadowgate, hiding behind a mask,’ spat Lief. ‘And you could not bend Bede to your will. You could not make him turn from Mariette. You could not make him love you!’
Behind the cold, green shell of the mask, the eyes flashed with hatred.
The black-draped arms rose. Tube-like fingers slid forward.
They struck Lief, burning like fire. And soundlessly he fell. Down, down into the pit.
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.