The nearest snake had the hood of a cobra, but strange alien growths like mushrooms lined its back. It reared up to bare its fangs, venom sizzling where it splashed on the steps.
‘You’ll never survive one bite,’ Sophie pressed.
Caitlin surveyed the mass of writhing bodies, almost close enough to touch now. Then she said firmly, ‘It’s a test. Math wants to see if we’re up to the honour of meeting him.’
‘Yes, dead or alive, it would seem.’
The nearest snake moved within striking range. Caitlin made her decision and then lay flat on the stairs.
‘What are you doing?’ Sophie said incredulously.
‘He said we had to prove we’re worthy. He wants us on our bellies, supplicating.’
‘You’re mad.’ Sophie looked from Caitlin to the snakes and then back down the stairs. Then she recalled what she and Mallory had had to go through in the temple beneath Cadbury Hill and knew that Caitlin was right. Cursing under her breath, she threw herself down. ‘If I survive I’m never going to forgive you for this.’ She closed her eyes and pressed her face hard into the cold ivory of the steps.
The serpents reached her a second later, a writhing mass pressing down so hard that Sophie felt she might suffocate. The sensation of constant movement above her made the bile rise in her throat. Their skin was dry against her face, forcing their way through her hair, wriggling past her cheeks, under her nose, forcing her lips apart with their tiny bodies, pressing against her eyes.
A minute later she was drowning beneath a sea of serpents, her face crushed into the hard steps, blood on her lips, in her mouth. In a desperate attempt to distract herself from the horror of what was happening, she grunted rhythms in her throat, made up tunes in her head, anything that might take her mind away.
And then the claustrophobia set in and she began to choke, but the weight above her was so great that she couldn’t have lifted herself up from the steps if she tried. Panic rammed rational thoughts aside and she knew, in that instant, how easy it would be to go insane.
The snakes continued to come for what felt like hours, until Sophie couldn’t believe there were so many snakes in all the worlds. Just when she thought her last breath was about to give out, the mass above her grew lighter, and then quickly receded.
Finally, she was on her knees, choking and spitting, unable to believe that she hadn’t received one bite. Caitlin was beside her in the same state, yet strangely smiling. She grabbed Sophie’s arm and indicated down the stairs in the direction the serpents had gone. Sophie looked around, but there were no snakes to be seen anywhere.
‘You’re not telling me that was all in my mind,’ Sophie choked.
‘It was real all right,’ Caitlin said. ‘And we survived.’
After a moment gathering themselves, they started back up the winding stairway. The aroma of incense grew stronger, and eventually the stairway opened out into a room that covered the whole floor at the very top of the tower. Four windows at the cardinal points looked out over the glittering lights of the dreaming city. In front of each sat a creature that resembled an animal, but had the same otherworldly quality as the snakes — a gleam of intelligence in the eye, or an odd movement of the mouth as if it was muttering to itself, or an unusual size.
There was an enormous boar, fat and bristling, its piggy eyes green and furious; a hawk that was almost as big as Sophie; a salmon, again as big as a person, sitting in a large wooden chair, its tail flapping against the wooden floorboards; and a bear, watching them contemptuously. All were fastened in place by an iron chain attached to a ring bolted to the floor. The four beasts radiated an air of menace that made Sophie and Caitlin wary of venturing too close.
Purple drapes covered with gold and silver magical symbols lined the walls between each window, and the floorboards were marked with similar magical symbols. A brazier gave off the heavy incense, while other mystical objects stood around. Several lanterns burning with a dull red light hung on chains from the ceiling; a brass telescope, maps and charts lay on a table, flanked by books and flasks of philtres.
And in the centre of the room, nearly seven feet tall, stood Math. Long black robes covered his entire body and on his head, protruding from a four-holed cowl, was a brass mask with a different face in each of the holes: a boar, a falcon, a salmon and a bear.
‘You survived the test,’ he said from the mask of the boar, with a voice that was strangely gruff. ‘I would have expected no less from a Sister of Dragons. But from a Fragile Creature?’ He tilted the mask towards Caitlin. It would have been easy to wilt under the cold eyes just visible behind it, but Caitlin held her head proudly.
‘We have come to ask a favour of you,’ Caitlin said.
‘A boon?’ Math was clearly intrigued by this. ‘For you — the Fragile Creature?’
‘For my friend,’ Sophie interjected, ‘who was once a Sister of Dragons, too.’
‘Ah.’ The brass mask nodded and Sophie was disturbed to see the real boar at its window nodding in time. Math’s hands protruded from the voluminous sleeves as he brought his fingertips together; they were brown and scabrous, as if they had been severely burned. ‘And what would this boon be?’
‘I wish…’ Caitlin took a breath before steeling herself to continue. ‘I wish to have the Pendragon Spirit within me once again.’
Math grew rigid. With a soft whisper, the mask rotated so that the salmon’s features faced them. When he spoke, his voice had changed, too, and was now soft and liquid, somehow. ‘You ask me to make you a Sister of Dragons again? Impossible! That is a gift that can only come from Existence.’
‘You have to!’ Caitlin’s voice cracked.
The eerie mask turned again until the face of the bear appeared. ‘You dare raise your voice to me!’ Math roared. Caitlin took a step back. Behind Math, the bear was straining at his chain, eager to break free to tear Caitlin to pieces.
Caitlin, though, was undeterred. She looked to Sophie with tears in her eyes. ‘Please.’
‘We’re sorry if we’ve offended you,’ Sophie said. ‘My friend didn’t mean it. She came here because she heard you were the greatest magician in the Court of Soul’s Ease, and if you can’t help her, no one else can.’
There was a long period of silence that ended with the appearance of the falcon’s face. ‘I can petition Existence on your behalf. But there are dangers, even for one such as me. I will demand a fine price to take such a step.’ There was a subtle slyness to his words.
‘Anything,’ Caitlin said before Sophie could stop her.
If she could penetrate the mask, Sophie knew she would see Math smiling. He turned his head in her direction. ‘I ask for very little,’ he said, ‘but it is this: a simple memory from a Sister of Dragons. A precious memory, a rare and unique thing. But it will not be missed.’
Caitlin could now see the danger, but it was too late. ‘I’m the one who should be-’ she began, but Math waved her silent with a burned hand.
He pointed a long, scarred finger at Sophie and said, ‘You must agree. One simple memory.’
‘What does it mean if I give it to you?’ Sophie asked.
‘It will be gone from you for ever, nevermore to be recalled. But what is a memory? An ephemeral thing.’
Sophie’s heart was pounding. ‘Which memory?’ Sophie asked hesitantly.
‘The memory of your first meeting with the one you love.’
‘Oh, no,’ Caitlin moaned.
Sophie felt sick. The image of Mallory sitting with her in a camp in Salisbury flashed through her mind, the smells, the sounds, his expression, the way she had felt disoriented and happy and sexy, realising the near-instant attraction. All that, gone for good; it would be like losing a physical part of her. But then she looked at Caitlin and saw her desolation, and thought of what good they both could do; of the chance they had to save the human race. She didn’t really have a choice.
‘All right,’ she said. She was aware of another secret smile beneath the mask, and then Math reached out his fingers and brushed her forehead. It felt like a steel hook was squirming in her brain. As he pulled back his fingers, there was a flash of intense pain and she screamed. A blue spark followed his fingers. Math guided it to the table where he uncorked a flask. He directed the spark inside before re-corking it hastily.
‘Sophie, thank you,’ Caitlin said. Her face was filled with guilt, but beneath it lay a desperate hope.
Sophie didn’t hear. She was trying to recall her first meeting with Mallory, but there was a horrible black hole in her mind that refused to budge however much she poked and prodded it. And she realised with a note of panic that she no longer knew why she loved Mallory, just that she did; it felt like coming into a movie twenty minutes
