History Keepers 1: The Storm Begins (29 page)

The prince made a gesture to the assembled crowd, then stepped down towards the blood-red carriage and inspected its load. It was neatly packed with its crates of books: five hundred volumes whose deadly contents would shortly strike Europe. He cast his eye around the cargo and nodded in satisfaction. The door of the carriage was closed; Mina gave a signal to the huge, ugly beast of a driver and his equally ugly companion, and the vehicle set off through the archway, heading down the mountain on its journey south.

Immediately an open-topped carriage drew up. Zeldt climbed in and took his seat with great solemnity. Mina, still clutching the box, joined him. Then she signalled to a guard, who had Von Bliecke’s dog, Felson, on the end of a lead. The dog yelped as he was bundled into the carriage, then crouched down, cowering away from both Mina and the prince.

Topaz was now ushered to move towards them, but she remained where she was.

‘Come and sit here, my dear,’ Zeldt hissed, patting the seat next to him, ‘and tell me
everything
you’ve been up to. It’s been
epochs
.’

Still Topaz did not move. Two guards forced her up into the vehicle. She sat beside Zeldt, but did not look at him; Mina studied her with a sinister smile.

The carriage set off out of the castle, heading for the harbour and the red-sailed warship, the
Lindwurm
.

26 S
NAKES AND
L
ADDERS

‘IS EVERYONE ALL
right?’ Nathan’s voice echoed around the pitch-black space.

Charlie just grunted and Paolo replied, ‘I’m locked in a stone box with no food or water, apparently about to die … I’ve never felt better.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ answered Nathan, ignoring Paolo’s sarcasm. ‘Jake? Are you all right?’ He waited for an answer. ‘Jake? Can you hear me?’

Jake could hear Nathan perfectly (it was physically impossible
not
to hear him), but he didn’t feel like talking. The truth was, he was very far from all right. His mind was awhirl with fears and worries. Zeldt had told him that he would ‘find out’ about his parents in the labyrinth, and that he should ‘prepare’ himself. He knew this could mean only one thing. He was desperate both to find out
and
not
find out what awful secrets might lie beyond the chamber.

On top of all this, Topaz had now been abducted. The fact that Jake had known her for only a matter of days – that he was unable to explain or understand his feelings for her – was neither here nor there. Jake felt a deep attachment to her, as though, somehow, she was a part of him. His need to find her again was almost as strong as his need to find his family.

‘If you’re worried about what Zeldt said,’ Nathan persevered, ‘we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’ The truth was, after finding the clothing tag in the dungeon, Nathan himself feared the worst, but he felt it was his duty to keep morale as high as possible.

‘He’s right,’ Charlie added cheerfully. ‘There’s no point in worrying until we find hard evidence.’

‘Like Alan and Miriam’s severed limbs,’ Paolo suggested unhelpfully. ‘Ow!’ he cried as he received a clip on the back of the head from Nathan. ‘
Ow
!’ he yelled again as Charlie gave him another for good measure.

‘Let’s not talk about it,’ Jake decided grimly. ‘Let’s just get out of here!’

‘I like your style!’ drawled Nathan.

‘Spoken like a true History Keeper,’ Charlie concurred.

‘Zeldt said that a door would open into the labyrinth in an hour …’ Nathan set about feeling his way around the walls. ‘I’d say ten minutes has passed already. We need to find that door and force it somehow. What’s this …? Charlie, does this feel like something?’

Nathan directed Charlie’s hand to a groove in the back wall. ‘Can you get any purchase on it?’ he asked.

They both groaned and grunted as they tried to force the wall apart.

‘Oh, thank God!’ Nathan cried suddenly.

‘You’ve opened it?’ Paolo exclaimed.

‘No, I thought I’d cracked my nail, but it’s all right – disaster averted.’

‘How can you care about your
nails
at a time like this?’ murmured Paolo in despair.

‘I’m not going to dignify that question with an answer. My nails are perfect in all respects: tone, colour and contour. There exists no time or circumstance in which I would lose interest in them.’

Even with all four of them pulling with all their
might
, the stone wall refused to budge. Eventually, with reluctance, Nathan suggested that they conserve their energies and wait until the chamber opened of its own accord.

As they sat there in the darkness, Charlie told Nathan and Paolo about Zeldt’s plan to destroy Europe and the Renaissance. With every new twist, from the prince’s use of genetically modified plague, to the books with their vile secret, to the time bomb to be detonated in Cologne Cathedral, Paolo uttered a single phrase over and over again: ‘
Oh, mamma mia! Oh, mamma mia
!’

Finally there was a sound of grinding stone, and the back wall of the chamber split in two.

‘It’s opening! The wall’s opening!’ Paolo gasped as pale light crept into the room. Jake’s heart started pounding like a bass drum.

Nathan limped over to the aperture and peered inside. ‘The labyrinth, I assume. Very welcoming.’

‘Is anyone in there?’ Jake shouted out into the void. ‘Anyone at all?’ His voice echoed around the space. There was no response.

‘Jake, do you still have that lighter I gave you?’ asked Nathan.

Jake took it out of his pocket and passed it over.

Nathan turned to Paolo, and with one tug ripped the sleeve from his jacket.

‘What are you doing? Mamma made me that.’

‘Sorry – cheap material burns well,’ Nathan replied as he set light to Paolo’s sleeve.

He was right: it produced a bright flame, and he hurled the burning sleeve into the centre of the space. It landed on the edge of a wooden gantry, revealing Zeldt’s labyrinth with its endless puzzle of staircases going off at every conceivable angle.

‘Exit?’ Paolo wailed. ‘Where? How on earth are we to find the exit?’

‘Hello!’ Jake called again, scanning every inch of the murky space.

All four agents listened intently. Eventually they heard an odd noise like shifting sand.

‘Wh-what is that?’ asked Paolo, wondering if he really wanted to know the answer.

‘It sounds like it’s coming from the floor,’ said Charlie.

Nathan turned to Paolo and ripped off his other sleeve.

‘Nathan!’ he exclaimed.

‘What? You want to go around with one sleeve?
You
’ve got four hundred years until asymmetry becomes fashionable.’

Nathan lit the second sleeve and flicked it into the centre of the space. It was a good shot. It fell between the various staircases and landed on the floor far below. The others craned their necks to see what lay there. The burning sleeve illuminated a large circle of empty stone.

Then the tail of a snake slowly curled out of sight. Paolo gasped. There was stillness again.

‘I don’t want to be the voice of doom,’ said Charlie, ‘but that looked suspiciously like a black mamba.’

‘A black mamba?’ whispered Paolo. ‘That’s bad, is it?’

‘One of the deadliest creatures on earth,’ Nathan confirmed. ‘It can deliver up to four hundred milligrams of venom in one bite. You’re dead in twenty minutes, if it doesn’t strangle you first.’

‘And it’s long,’ added Charlie. ‘Fifteen feet. That’s nearly three of you put together.’

It was impossible for Paolo to go any paler, but he said nothing. Jake continued to search the chamber for any sign of his parents.

‘Of course, the “black” refers not to its skin
colour
,’ added Charlie, ‘but to the inky interior of its mouth.’

‘Which they say is blacker than a black hole.’ Nathan raised his eyebrows.

‘All right, that’s enough!’ snapped Paolo. ‘We don’t know what it is for sure, so lesson over!’

‘Not quite …’ Charlie had seen something else. The head of another terrible serpent appeared in the illuminated circle. For a moment it did not move. Then it gradually started to slither across the space. In unison, all the boys’ eyes widened in horror: it was, at the very least, fifteen feet long.

‘That’ll be a black mamba then,’ said Nathan.

‘And all its black mamba friends,’ Charlie added chillingly.

‘Let’s go then,’ said Jake, swallowing his fear and descending to the first step of a staircase leading away from their chamber. But his foot came into contact with nothing but air. He lost his balance and fell forward. In a flash, Nathan had caught him and pulled him back up.

‘Those steps are not what they seem to be. None of them are. It’s a puzzle – a trick with mirrors.’

He demonstrated by dropping a small stone onto the ‘apparent’ staircase in front of them. There was
actually
a sheer drop into the great abyss below.

‘So how do we know which way to go?’ asked Paolo desperately.

‘Well, mirrors can play tricks, but gravity can’t,’ said Charlie as he scooped up a handful of grit and scattered it in front of them. Amazingly it settled on a flight of stairs that appeared to go in completely the wrong direction. The others were puzzled, but the truth was there to see in front of them. Charlie took a pace forward. It seemed as if he would step into nothingness, but he landed on firm ground.

‘You see? Simple really,’ he said, secretly drawing a sigh of relief. ‘Everyone get some grit and follow me.’

Jake, Nathan and Paolo each scooped up some dirt and cautiously set off. Charlie led the way; Nathan followed Jake, holding onto his shoulder so as to avoid putting pressure on his leg. A whimpering Paolo brought up the rear.

They cautiously made their way down to a landing at the bottom of the first staircase and stopped. There were now three staircases going off at wildly divergent angles. Charlie scattered some grit and identified the correct path – a much narrower staircase that ascended high into the chamber.

As the four of them climbed the steps, they gradually got a clearer view of the space below. It was large and uneven, punctuated by clusters of shadowy rock, amongst which they glimpsed a spine-chilling undulating movement.

The agents carefully found a way through, up and down staircases, moving forward, doubling back and moving on again. Jake’s eyes still darted everywhere. After twenty minutes of slow, nail-biting progress, Nathan spotted a small rectangle of light.

‘Look! There!’ He pointed up to a doorway at the top of the winding staircase ahead of them.

Paolo gasped and his face lit up. ‘That’s it! That’s the exit!’ He pushed past the others and started up.

‘Wait! Come back,’ barked Nathan. ‘It might be a trap.’

‘No, I can see sky! I promise I can see sky,’ replied Paolo, rushing towards the light. ‘We’ve done it, we’ve done it!’ he exclaimed. He was running so swiftly that he did not notice one of the steps moving as he trod on it.

This set off a chain reaction in the mechanism below the labyrinth of stairs.

Paolo was four steps from the top when the
staircase
started to tilt. It creaked over onto its side, further and further, until, with a cry of terror, he lost his footing. The other three watched helplessly as he flew past them and crashed to the ground below in a cloud of dust.

For a second Paolo lost consciousness. When he came round, his mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out. Staring back at him were the dead eyes of Captain Von Bliecke. Next to his head was the captain’s half-eaten forearm, still gloved and clutching his sword. His legs were nowhere to be seen. Once again Paolo screamed soundlessly.

‘Back this way! Quickly!’ shouted Nathan, retreating to the previous landing.

But it was too late.

From all around came the sound of mechanical clunks, and gradually every staircase started to shift on its axis. Nathan, unable to balance on his bad leg, was the next to fall, hitting a gantry on the way down.

Jake and Charlie managed to switch to an upright staircase – only for that to start turning until it was almost upside down. Charlie fell; Jake managed to catch the ledge of another staircase, but this too was moving – and not in his favour. He held
on
with all his might, but at last his fingers slipped and he was forced to let go.

As he hit the ground, Jake heard a faint crack beneath his feet. He lost his balance and his back thumped onto the ground. It was covered in dark, dusty sand – much softer than it had appeared from above – but his body still trembled with shock. Voices seemed to be coming from all sides and blurred together in an indecipherable buzz.

Jake sat up and tried to focus. There were white shapes on the floor beside him. It took him a moment to realize what they were. They were eggs, black mambas’ eggs, and Jake had destroyed two of them when he fell.

He felt a pop in his ears and his hearing returned.

‘To your left!’ Nathan roared. ‘
To your left
!’

Jake saw the creature out of the corner of his eye: the mother of the smashed young mambas, a snake as thick as a human leg, was slithering towards him across the dark sand. He tried to get to his feet, but he was frozen with terror. The snake reared high off the ground and opened its inky black jaws. It hissed savagely as its lips curled back to reveal poison-drenched fangs. Like a possessed demon, it flew at Jake. He flinched away and was only half
conscious
of the sweep of metal and a sound of slicing.

A twelve-inch tranche of the mamba’s head flew across the chamber. The rest of its body seemed to freeze for a moment before collapsing in a lifeless coil.

Charlie stood there, breathing a sigh of relief and holding the sword taken from Von Bliecke’s severed forearm. ‘All right?’ he asked.

‘Up here! Now!’ Nathan shouted. He and Paolo had taken refuge on top of the largest rock. Charlie pulled Jake to his feet and they hurried across, dodging more furious snakes. Nathan held out his hand and pulled Jake up. As Charlie followed, another snake, smaller but more nimble, reared out of the shadows and sank its needle-like teeth into the thick leather of his boot.