The Key of Kilenya (9 page)

Something cold and smooth brushed against
Jacob’s cheek. He frantically wiped it off his face, spinning to
see what had touched him. Nothing was there besides the thrashing
branches.

He started forward again, peering ahead. He
gasped when another cold, smooth object ran through his hair. He
bent over and shook his head as hard as he could, trying to rid
himself of the animal, or whatever it was.

Seconds later he felt an extra weight on his
shoulders as something slid across and over them, circling his
neck. Reaching up to grab it, he recognized the feel of the
creature. It was a snake about two feet long, and in the dim light,
he could see that it was a pale color. He threw it away from
himself, stumbling backward when he saw it flatten itself mid-air
and float swiftly to a nearby tree.

Then the trees ceased moving. With their
stillness, the light was no longer dancing, allowing Jacob to see
better. Nearly every surface was covered with snakes—the ground
seemed to have come alive. Several of them floated through the
air.

Worried that the trees had stopped moving
because something even larger and scarier than flying serpents had
entered the forest, Jacob peered through the darkness, gingerly
treading forward. He tried not to step on any of the snakes and
grimaced when he did, but they didn’t react to him now that the
trees weren’t moving.

As he walked cautiously, watching the trees
in case they started to fling their branches around again,
something large brushed against his left leg. He looked down and
made out the shape of a snake, two feet in diameter, as it slowly
slithered past him, then stopped.

Jacob’s body stiffened with fear. He flipped
through all his Scouting memories—what kind of snake was this? Was
it poisonous? He couldn’t remember ever having seen one like it
before—even on TV. He gasped when he felt the snake coil around his
feet. He tried to step away, but couldn’t.

The snake hissed, and suddenly its face was
right in front of Jacob’s, the intelligent green eyes level with
his own, piercing into him. Pressure around his knees told him the
snake was increasing its grip there. He tried again to move, but
couldn’t—the massive serpent had coiled around his chest and
tightened its hold.

The snake’s tongue flicked out, barely
touching Jacob’s skin and hair, testing the air around him. Then
it’s body tightened so much it knocked the breath out of him.
Lifting Jacob completely off the ground, the snake hissed at him,
revealing six-inch fangs only a foot from his face. It whipped its
head away and started to drag him through the forest. Jacob gasped
for air and was finally able to pull in a breath.

After they had gone about fifty feet, they
were joined by a second snake, just as big as the first. This snake
slithered alongside them for a moment, then headed off to the
right.

The forest ended, and the snake reached the
edge of a clearing. Toward the center was a hill with a very large
manor on the crest. There was no sign of Akeno.

The manor must have been impressive in its
day. It had large columns which looked like granite, and massive
windows, most of which were boarded over or had been smashed open.
The wide cement porch that circled the house was cracked. Vines
grew uncontrolled through most of the cracks and up many of the
columns. The front right corner of the foundation had begun to
sink, and rotted wood lay everywhere.

To the front and right of the house was a
large pit. Jacob thought he could hear Akeno’s voice coming from
it, and he strained to get out of the snake’s tight grip. But the
snake ignored his attempts and continued slithering across the hard
ground, up the stairs, and right through the open front door of the
house.

It was musty and dirty inside, and dim light
shone in through a couple of smashed windows. The front entryway
was spacious—at least two stories high, maybe three. The floor was
marble, and there were huge marble pillars lining the entry.
Stained glass windows, most of them boarded over, were visible
between the pillars.

Before the snake took him up a large,
circular stairway, Jacob got a brief glimpse of a side room with
sheet-covered furniture. They went down a hall, the first half of
which overlooked the entire front entry. The second half was
enclosed and lined with doors, all of which were shut, and many of
them had a slight, greenish glow coming through the cracks. The
snake stopped abruptly at the end of the hall. A silvery,
translucent sheen covered the entire doorway in front of them, and
the door was missing.

The snake paused before entering. The moment
its head passed the frame, a loud clap burst through the air, and
the sheen disappeared. The snake released Jacob into the room. He
whirled, ready to defend himself, but the snake moved back into the
hallway, turning to bite the wood several times around the top,
bottom, and sides of the door frame. The same translucent veil
materialized again, sealing the entire entry, and the snake
slithered down the hall and stairs.

Rushing to the nearest window, barely
noticing the junk and oddly placed rolls of cloth on the floor,
Jacob saw the snake enter the thick forest and disappear. He
watched for a few moments, but the snake didn’t return.

The pit was beneath the window. It wasn’t
very deep—maybe two or three feet—and Akeno was there, thrashing
around in the remains of charred furniture and other debris. Jacob
pounded on the window, trying to get Akeno’s attention, but the
Makalo didn’t even seem to notice.

A cold wind blew on the back of Jacob’s neck,
making his hair rise. He turned and nearly yelled—a partially
decomposed body appeared to be falling out of the chair only a foot
or so in front of him.

Panicked it would fall, Jacob held his hands
up to protect himself and stepped to the side, barely missing
another body that lay across the floor, arms stretched toward the
door. He jumped away from it, noticing what he’d assumed to be
rolls of cloth were really bodies sprawled on the ground, reaching
for the exit. He made his way to a clear spot and looked
around.

The room was very large. There was a massive
bed against one wall, a fireplace on another, and several chairs
placed in random positions around bookcases, tables, and the
fireplace.

Nearly every chair held human remains,
ranging from full skeleton to decomposing corpses only having been
dead for maybe a few months. There were jugs of water and bits of
both fresh and moldy, uneaten food on a table in one of the corners
of the room.

The smell of death and decay became so
overpowering, Jacob felt as though his lungs would burst if he
didn’t get clean air at once. He steeled himself as he passed the
bodies, rushing back to the window to open it and let in fresh
air.

But the window wouldn’t budge.

Jacob’s eyes landed on the water jugs, and he
grabbed one—it was heavy with water. He smashed it against the
window as hard as he could. The result was water splashing all over
him and the nearest body, the jug shattering, and the window going
undamaged. He grimaced. He should have dumped the water out
first.

At this point, he saw several broken things
on the floor below the windows in the room, where it appeared
others had also tried to break the glass.

Jacob groaned. “Oh, man, I’ve really got to
get out of here.”

The sound of his own voice startled him, and
he looked over his shoulder at the bodies. He felt stupid when he
realized he was checking to see if they’d moved. He took a deep
breath to calm himself, and studied them. What if, like them, his
only chance to get out was to go through the doorway? But why
hadn’t the others gone through? They weren’t tied up or anything.
They weren’t even near the door. None of them was closer than five
or six feet.

Resolving to get out, Jacob crossed the room,
coming up near the sheen. He stopped three or so feet away, peering
at it. There was a slight movement, a few swirls in the silver.
Light pink and blue mists emanated from it, and Jacob was
distracted by the color for a moment—it was the first he’d seen in
at least an hour. Reaching toward it, he felt something pass over
his skin when his hand went through the mist before touching the
sheen. It was cold—very cold—and a sharp pinpricking feeling
started at his fingertips, moving to his wrist where the mist
stopped. Pulling back his arm, he examined his hand. No blood, no
mark, nothing.

He looked up, took a step closer, and put his
hand out again, determined to touch the actual veil this time. The
same cold, prickly feeling started at his fingertips and reached
his elbow. He held his breath and plunged his arm forward. Nothing
happened at first, but then he saw the sheen separate where he
touched it.

Jacob took the last step forward, pushing
himself into the veil. The cold mist encompassed him, causing the
pinpricking sensation to cross him head to foot. A great deal of
pressure enveloped his entire body, making movement difficult, and
he felt winds swirl around him, pulling his shirt up, blowing
through his hair.

An intense pain suddenly hit him—starting in
his chest and moving to his extremities. He felt as if he was being
electrocuted—he couldn’t move, and his body shook. He couldn’t even
breathe. His fingers felt pulled from their joints, and there was
no sensation in his feet. He tried to back out of the veil, but
felt as though some invisible force was holding him in one
spot.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was
probably only a few seconds, the feeling left him, and he doubled
over, gasping for breath. The pain left his muscles, replaced with
numbness, and he lost his balance, falling back into the room.

Jacob lay awkwardly on his side, no feeling
in his body whatsoever. Had he been zapped? Hit with a Taser? Even
his brain seemed paralyzed.

Sensation slowly returned to his limbs, and
he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. What on earth
had happened? Or, more precisely, what on Eklaron had happened? Had
he really been electrocuted? And why hadn’t it killed him? Had the
people in the room tried the same thing with similar results? He
flipped to his stomach and slowly pushed himself to his knees,
ignoring the dead body only a foot or so in front of him.

He stood and turned to face the sheen. It was
the only way out of the room—he was sure of it. Did he dare try to
walk through it again? He grimaced, imagining going through the
pain once more. Or two or three times. Who, after experiencing
something like that, would volunteer for a repeat? He looked around
the room at the dead bodies. There was no way he was going to stay
here and die like them. He had to get that Key. He had to get Akeno
out of the forest. He had to see Matt and his family and Ebony and
Kenji again, and he definitely had to try out for the basketball
team before he died. A fierce determination hit him. He
would
get the Key.
Nothing
was going to stop him.

Resolved to be successful, he put up his hand
and took a step, biting his lip when the tingly sensation moved
from his fingers to his arm. This time, however, he steeled himself
against the pressure of the winds and pushed as hard as he could.
The same intense pain began, making his breathing stop, but he was
already in a forward motion and continued pushing.

A loud, sudden pop made him jump, and the
pressure, the mist, the pain, and the wind were gone. Nothing was
left but the simple door frame.

Relief coursed through his body, and he
paused, breathing deeply. Why did it work this time and not the
first? Deciding to think on it later, he took one last look into
the room, then sprinted across the long hallway and down the
stairs, his joints protesting. He crossed the front entryway and
exited the house, expecting something to jump out at him any
minute, relieved when nothing did.

Once outside, Jacob looked around for any
sign of either snake, but something odd caught his attention. The
trees appeared to be pulsing toward the same point in the forest,
some distance away. And that spot appeared to be moving.

A sick feeling overcame him as he realized
that whatever moved through the forest was coming his way, and that
the trees wanted to be close to it—trees that had been trying to
kill him earlier. His imagination spun wildly out of control.

Running to the edge of the pit, he saw Akeno
digging through the junk. The furniture had been burned a while
ago—he couldn’t tell how long it had been.

He ran down the three-foot slope into the pit
and reached Akeno. Not even waiting to see what mood Akeno was in,
Jacob took a tight hold on the Makalo's hands, pinned them
together, and swung the small person over his shoulder.

Then he practically flew out of the pit.
Ignoring Akeno’s yells, he ran through the forest, praying he
wouldn’t run into either of the huge snakes. It was difficult to
keep Akeno in one spot—he was kicking with all his might and almost
got away several times.

The trees didn’t thrash at them, and Jacob
figured they were distracted by whatever was just ahead and to the
left. He was uncomfortable with the idea that he was running almost
straight toward their focus point, but there wasn’t anything else
he could do. He only knew one way to get back to the path, and that
was to go the way he’d come.

Jacob kept Akeno’s hands pinned together with
one hand. He used the other to push branches out of the way.
Jumping across a tree that had flattened itself down, he almost
lost Akeno from his grip.

Turning to the right, Jacob tried to widen
the space between the oncoming danger and themselves. He started to
feel hope that they’d be able to get away after all.

As he tore through the forest, a snake flew
right across the air in front of him, making him almost lose Akeno
again. Memories of a science show he’d once seen on flying snakes
flashed through his memory. Did these snakes fly the same way, by
flattening their bodies, and letting the wind catch them as they
floated?