The Serpent's Shadow

enormously larger—with every wingbeat. Nisha had turned a snowy white, and glowed so brightly it made Peter's eyes water; Mala had become something else altogether, an enormous multicolored bird with a raptor's beak and tearing talons, fully large enough to ride on—

As they closed with the monsters, the mist came up and swirled them away before Peter had a chance to see more than that. But that glimpse was all Gupta needed.

'Vishnu—' the old man breathed prayerfully. 'Laksmi. The Gods are with us—'

'Well, there's at least one that's still against us,' Peter snapped. 'Keep going, before that witch we're after comes up with some other surprise for us!'

A few steps back in the direction of the wall, and the water was gone, the floor dry once more. The mist thinned a little, and they made their way back to the wall while they could still see it. Was that a good sign, or a bad one? As the mist dissipated, it took the light with it, leaving them in darkness again. They reached the wall in the nick of time before it vanished altogether, leaving Peter blinking and feeling uncomfortably helpless. Without the revolver, his only weapon was Gupta's knife, and he wasn't a particularly good knife fighter. He groped for the support of the rough wood behind him.

Was Almsley coming up against any of this?

Probably not. With her physical guards busied elsewhere, and no way to divide her forces once they were engaged, the priestess must have called up her supernatural protections to deal with the second invasion. With any luck, she didn't even know where they were exactly, or how many of them there were — only that there was another enemy to be driven out or killed.

'Right,' Rhadi said, loud enough for all of them to hear; Gupta grunted agreement.

'Got a door!' Norrey exclaimed a moment later.

'Cor—this hain't the door we was lookin' at before. 'Ang on a mo—'

There was a scratch, and ordinary, yellow light flared up from the match that Norrey held in her hand. Beside her was a perfectly normal door, past it was a storage closet. Peter swallowed disappointment.

'Ai!' said Rhadi, before Peter could speak. He suited his action to his words, flew across the closet to the far wall, and landed on a broom. And there was a click. The broom moved, and the wall pivoted in its center, showing a set of spiral stairs that led down into what looked like a storage cellar. That was all they saw before the match burned down to Norrey's fingers and she dropped it with a curse.

'Down!' said Rhadi insistently from his perch on the broom.

'I will stay here to guard your back, sahib,' Gupta said after a moment. 'I do not know what you may encounter there, but we know this place here holds evil things.'

' 'Old still, old 'eathen,' Norrey told him. There was the sound of a blade being drawn. 'There. Oi'm a dab 'and wit' a sticker. Oi'll bide 'ere with ye. Naow, ift gets loight agin, yew gimme one o' them popguns, eh?'

'I shall, little mem'sab,' Gupta promised. 'Go, sahib! Time flies!'

Peter didn't need any further encouragement; he groped his way into the closet and put his hand under Rhadi. The parrot pulled himself up to Peter's shoulder again. Peter felt his way past the hidden door, then worked his way carefully, a step at a time, down the staircase in utter blackness. As the stairs took another turn, he saw a thin, faint line of light somewhere at the bottom. If there had been any other light, even the glow of fox fire or Norrey's match, he'd never have seen it.

'Door,' Rhadi agreed.

He groped his way down the stairs toward that beckoning thread of palest yellow, that suggestion of illumination. The stairs ended; floor began. The strip of light was just higher than his head, suggesting the top of a door. 'Carefull' Rhadi warned, and instead of rushing toward it, he felt ahead with his foot, encountering something—a bucket, a box—immediately.

The hero trips over a bucket and breaks his neck. He went to his hands and knees and groped his way through the litter to the wall, only to find junk piled up against it.

But Rhadi ran down onto his arm and hand, and tapped his beak lightly on the wall. 'Hand,' he said. 'Up!'

There's another secret catch. Peter moved his hand up a trifle.

'Morel' Rhadi insisted. Then, 'Right! Morel' He felt the bird lean forward; there was a loud click.