Summer's Cauldron (30 page)

“To be more accurate, sound doesn’t travel in the swamp,” Victoria said, sliding the strap of her satchel over her shoulders. “I’ve never been in it myself, but as I’ve heard it explained, there is simply no sound once you are in the swamp.”

“No sounds from animals, you mean,” Kendra asked.

“No sound at all,” Victoria said.

“Victoria’s right,” Nina said. “There’s no sound from animals or trees or water or your footsteps or your voices or anything.”

“Silence,” Ben said. “Total silence.”

“How do we communicate?” Nathan asked.

“Sign language?” Eleada suggested.

“Thanks to Victoria’s father, we have something better than sign language,” Alex said.

“Mumbling marbles,” Victoria said with a proud smile as she held up her backpack.

It took a few minutes to distribute the mumbling marbles and explain to Eleada, Kendra, and Nathan how they worked. Alex and the rest of the Guild all had their own mumbling marbles, but Victoria had packed spares in her satchel when they left the Guild House. Her father had invented them to allow people to communicate over long distances without sound. He had also given them flavors.

“Sour apple,” Nathan said with a frown as he took his marble from his mouth.

“Sorry, that’s the last one,” Victoria said. Alex could have sworn she smiled when she said it.

“Okay,” Alex said as they all assembled at the edge of the swamp. “Beowulf will lead us in. Rafa and Kendra, could you change into birds and scout ahead?”

“Sure,” Kendra said, beginning to glow and transform into a raven, her clothes morphing to accommodate her new shape.

“You’ll learn to hesitate before volunteering,” Rafael said as he glowed red. He popped his marble into his mouth and transformed into another large black raven. Kendra must have explained how to enchant his clothes, because they too changed shape and clung to his large bird body.

“Everyone, stay close,” Alex said. “Ben and Clark, bring up the rear and watch where we came from. There’s a lot of them and they could be waiting to ambush us. Ready?”

Alex waited a moment for anyone to say something, but when no one did, he bent down to Beowulf and patted the small dog on the head. “Go find ‘em, boy.”

Beowulf gave a low woof and trotted off toward the swamp. Alex didn’t allow himself to hesitate. He had heard too many stories from his father about the dangers of the Silent Swamp. Esmeralda and the evil carnies only added to those dangers. If he had allowed himself to hesitate, he might have thought seriously about turning back. Or at least blowing the whistle around his neck that would call his mother and father to his side. He wanted to blow the whistle, but he wanted to wait until the presence of his parents would really help.

The journey into the swamp was gradual. With Beowulf in the lead, they passed through a narrow margin of slender trees giving way to a marshy field of tall, green reeds. The ground beneath their feet became soggier with each step until they passed out of the reeds and into the weeping willows, drooping maples, and water-logged oak trees of the actual swamp. As they moved through the trees, it became harder and harder to avoid the still and stagnant water surrounding them. Dry patches came farther apart, forcing them to wade through scum-covered water reaching up past their knees.

The disappearance of sound matched their pace through the swamp. It reminded Alex of slowly turning down the volume on a record player. Each step was quieter than the last. The more they trudged through the water, the less they could hear the splashing of their passage.

By the time Alex found himself waist deep in swamp water, he was completely deaf, save for the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Ahead of him, Beowulf paddled through the dark and murky water, his wide ears floating out to the side and rippling with the waves caused by each stroke of his small paws.

Alex looked back over his shoulder to find Victoria had accepted Nina and Daphne as riders on the back of her horse half. The water only came to the tops of Victoria’s legs and would have been near the necks of Nina and Daphne. Clark had scooped up Ben, who now rode perched atop Clark’s broad shoulders. Eleada had opted to stay on her feet in the water, although she walked with her bow held high to keep the string from getting damp. Nathan followed Eleada, looking as wet and uncomfortable as Alex felt.

At least the rainstorm had left them all so water-soaked that the swamp water was not a shock. While filthy, the water was actually fairly warm, likely the result of the unnaturally hot weather of the past few days. However, the stench of rotting vegetation made the slog unpleasant. Alex looked up into the sky and saw Rafael and Kendra circling above as ravens and felt a pang of envy. He couldn’t wait to get dry again.

Looking down, he saw his hands. His fingers had become fleshy, brown prunes. Getting dry was nothing that would happen soon. After twenty minutes of silently splashing through the swamp with not even the sound of his own breath in his ears, Alex suddenly heard a voice in his head.

“Mar moo shmur mat mog mows mhere me’s mowing?”

The voice sounded like Eleada. He looked back at her and gave her a thumbs-up sign. She rolled her eyes. He took the opportunity to smile at Victoria, because he knew she would smile back and it would brighten his mood. She did and his mood responded instantly. Unfortunately, looking at Victoria meant he was not looking where he was wading through the swamp.

He turned around to see a large snake head staring at him as it floated on the water’s surface. His good mood faded fast. Almost as fast as the snake snapped forward, diving down into the water and wrapping around his legs. Alex had only a moment to reach down and grapple with the snake before it pulled him from his feet and down into the black swamp water.

Underwater, Alex kicked at the snake, grabbing it below the neck with both hands and squeezing tight. Even as he did so, half a dozen mangled voices assaulted his head.

“Melp, melp!”

“Makes! Makes!”

“Mare mall mover mu mace!”

“Mi mate makes!”

Alex held his breath as he held on to the snake’s neck, its head whipping about as it slowly lost strength. Just as Alex was certain he could hold his breath no longer, the snake abated its attack and relaxed its hold on Alex’s legs.

Alex stood up, still holding the reptile by the neck and gasping for air, struck by the silence of his struggle with the snake even as the sounds of his friend’s jumbled voices bombarded his head. He gasped again as he saw the entire party was under attack by snakes. Hundreds of snakes. The water churned with the battle between the snakes as they emerged from the swamp and attempted to bite Alex’s friends and pull them under.

Alex watched as the heads of two large snakes wrapped around Eleada’s waist and dragged her down. Even under attack, she had the presence of mind to hold her bow above the surface of the swamp water. Ben sat on Clark’s shoulders and loosed an arrow into a snake’s head as a clutch of the reptiles wound around Clark’s legs and tried to pull him under.

Beowulf had transformed into his larger, grizzly bear size, and had two snake necks in his massive jaws, thrashing them back and forth. Victoria and Nathan were dancing in the water, attempting to knock the snakes away with their hooves. Victoria raised her hands at a large snake curling up before her and flame suddenly erupted from her palms, engulfing the snake’s head. The last thing Alex saw before three snakes twirled around his ankles and pulled him beneath the water was Nathan copying Victoria’s attack on the snakes near his own legs.

As Alex struggled beneath the water with the snakes, several thoughts struggled for dominance in his mind. The first was that he needed to get above the surface of the water soon because he had not had time to grab more than a fleeting breath when the snakes had pulled him down. The second was that Victoria and Nathan were the group’s only hope of survival. They were the only ones who could perform magic without speaking the words aloud.

Alex had managed to perform magic with only his thoughts when he had saved himself from being drowned in the Azure River by the runaway bicycle, but that had been a simple spell. Creating enough fire to combat the snakes would take far more concentration. Attempting that level of concentration would be a sure way to end up drowned by snakes.

The third thought was how odd it was he had not seen the tail of a single snake in the entire attack. This led to a fourth thought, really more of a memory, that right as they had been attacked, he had seen a tree that did not look at all like the others they had passed, its bark a deep, scaly black.

Alex held one hand around the neck of a snake and used his free hand to pull his pocketknife from his pants, opening it one-handed to slash at the second snake’s head that menaced him. The blade made contact, thick, black blood oozing from the snake’s hide. Both snakes pulled back momentarily, allowing Alex to surface, spitting fetid water from his mouth even as he used his teeth to hold onto the mumbling marble.

“Ma mlack mree!”
Alex mumbled into the marble, trying to gesture with the knife in his hand toward Victoria and Nathan that they should attack the large, leafless black tree at their side. They were still flashing flames from their hands at individual snakes surfacing from the dark water.

Nina and Daphne were clinging to Victoria’s horse back as snakes pulled at their waists. In the air above, Alex glimpsed two small dragons, one red and one blue, belching flame at the rippling water. Rafael and Kendra had been able to change form to assist in the defense against the snakes.

“Ma mlack mree miss ma makes. Ma makes mar ma mlack mree.”

As the snakes around him redoubled their attack and dragged him once again into the water, Alex hoped Victoria and Nathan had been able to interpret his hasty and garbled pleas. As he thrashed and fought with the snakes holding him in the muddied swamp water, Alex could make out the stone gray clouds above. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears while his mind filled with the frantic and largely unintelligible voices of his friends shouting as they fought off the snakes.

For a moment, he was certain it would be the last and final sound he ever heard as his lungs gave way against the powerful muscles of the snakes squeezing at his chest and air burst from his mouth. Then clouds of tangerine and ruby-tinted fire filled the sky above the water. A moment later, the snakes were gone.

Alex staggered to his feet to see Victoria and Nathan assaulting the black snake-tree with walls of flame even as Rafael and Kenda belched fire into the tree’s branches from above. Hundreds of snake-roots writhed in the water, their mouths open in silent shrieks of pain.

The group needed no signal to know what to do. They ran, Victoria and Nathan shooting steams of fire over their shoulders as they fled, Rafael and Kendra continuing the assault the snake-tree and covering the group’s escape. When the snake-tree was several hundred yards away, Alex and the others finally stopped and gathered around.

“Mi mate makes,”
Victoria said through the magic marble voice in Alex’s head.

“Memusa’s magots,”
Daphne said.
“Mat mas mlose.”

“Mow mid moo mink mov ma mree?”
Eleada asked, wringing swamp water from her hair.

“Muck,”
Alex said. It had been luck. But it had also cost them more time. Now they would need more luck to find Esmeralda before she and other carnies could find the sword.
“Me mould mo,”
Alex said.
“Me mon’t mave much mime.”

The others nodded and they resumed their trek through the swamp. Nina and Daphne once again took their places on Victoria’s horse back while Ben climbed up to Clark’s shoulders. Beowulf remained in his bear-sized form as he continued to lead them through the swamp. Alex no longer cared how wet he was. Wet was fine as long as he could breath. They all kept a watchful eye on the water for any more signs of snakes, and avoided the vicinity of any tree that looked like its bark might be even a little scaly.

Alex was beginning to lose hope of ever catching up to Esmeralda, Mr. Apollo, and the evil carnies when Beowulf stopped and held still, gesturing with his nose toward a small clump of trees with knarred roots and wilted branches. The dog only paused a moment, long enough for Alex to see where it was going, then it paddled forward again. As they approached the cluster of trees, Alex could discern movement from within and between them. He motioned to the others to take cover as they approached, moving from tree to tree, as they came closer to the spot where Beowulf led them.

Alex held up his hand for the others to stop as he reached down and placed his hand on Beowulf’s collar and halted the dog’s hunt. An outer ring of knotted trees circled a single gigantic tree in the center. Around this tree, Alex could see four people — Esmeralda, Mr. Apollo, and the two Siren Sisters, Medea and Elektra.

Esmeralda and Mr. Apollo were hacking at the tree with long daggers, digging into the meat of the tree’s trunk, one soundless blow at a time. Alex could not see what they were digging at, but he saw something green and glittery behind the blades of the daggers. Mr. Apollo stopped and pulled at something within the trunk of the tree, straining as he heaved at it. Then the thing was free and Alex could see what it was as Mr. Apollo turned to show it to Esmeralda.

The Sword of Silas.

Nearly four feet long and encased in a rusted metal sheath with rotted leather straps dangling down, the hilt of the blade held a large emerald stone gleaming even in the dull light of the heavily clouded sky. Lord Elvodar’s vassal had hid the sword well, apparently strapping it to the bark of a young tree and allowing the trunk to grow around it over time, eventually hiding the sword from any who might seek it out. It made Alex wonder how Esmeralda had managed to find it so easily. It was a conundrum, but one he did not have time to contemplate.

Alex turned to the others, gesturing for them to spread out in a ring. He pointed to Victoria and Nathan, pantomiming with his hands to indicate fire, and then spreading his hands out to show them to circle and attack from opposite sides. He gave similar silent instructions to Eleada and Ben. It was actually easier than trying to communicate with the mumbling marbles.