Kirsten screamed and tried to jerk her head back. But it was too late. Already another snake had caught hold of the braid, and another, and another.
In seconds the rope of hair was a mass of snakes writhing desperately up to freedom. The weight dragged Kirsten’s head down and pinned her, screaming, to the edge of the pit.
By the time Lief staggered back, stunned and horror-struck, she had become a living lifeline. The pit was emptying as snakes in their hundreds swarmed to freedom over her head, neck and shoulders.
And as the pit emptied, Lief’s strength ebbed away. He could feel it as surely as if it blood were draining from his veins.
His limbs were trembling and heavy. It was hard to keep his head upright. He could barely keep his eyes from closing. His mind was clouding.
The Sister of the North was being uncovered. Its song was growing louder. Its poison and malice were battering him like crashing waves.
Despair and die.
He forced himself to look up. Kirsten was covered in a wriggling, hissing mass of scaly flesh. And as she screamed and struggled, the panicking snakes struck at her again and again and again.
She is protected…
So Jasmine had said. But the snakes were striking in their hundreds. Their fangs were like needles. And with every tiny needle scratch, another drop of poison seeped into Kirsten’s helpless body. She would take a long time to die.
Sickness churned in Lief’s stomach. He looked down again.
There was only one snake left in the pit. And it was no snake at all. Pale and bloated, striped with thin lines of poisonous yellow, the thing thrashed mindlessly on the stinking, seeping rock.
It had no eyes. It had no tongue. It had no fangs. But evil radiated from it like heat. And from its empty, gaping mouth poured the deadly song of the Sister of the North, filling Lief’s ears and his mind, forcing him to his knees.
He told himself he had to move. He had to raise his sword. He had to try to smash the thing. Destroy it. But its evil was killing him. Its song of despair and death was ringing in his ears, drowning out all other sound. With a dull clang, his sword fell from his hand.
His fingers would not move. His hands felt as if they did not belong to him. Gritting his teeth, he lifted them. They felt like heavy lumps of dough attached to his arms. Clumsily he pressed them against the Belt of Deltora.
He felt heat. Strong, beating heat. Heat far greater than he had expected. Not just in his hands, but in the Belt itself.
Confused, he looked down. His hands were shining green. A blaze of bright green was streaming between the fingers, lighting up the dark.
Dark… why was it dark? Lief forced his head back, looked up. The tower room was dim, as though the windows had been curtained by cloud.
He could just make out the figure of Kirsten slumped over the edge of the pit. And dimly he could see the snakes. They were fleeing, slithering off Kirsten’s body and away, out of sight.
What…?
Lief’s heart was thudding like a drum in his chest. His fingers were hot, burning hot. He tilted his head a little more. He looked higher. Up to the high, dim roof of the tower.
Then, suddenly, astoundingly, there was an ear-splitting crack—and the roof was gone.
Suddenly there was nothing above him but boiling clouds… and a vast, gleaming shape plunging towards him, green as the emerald glowing beneath his hands, roaring like thunder.
The emerald dragon!
The wind of the dragon’s wings beat Lief down, flattening him against the floor of the pit. Mighty talons reached for him, closed about him and lifted him into the air.
Weak as an infant, Lief rolled helplessly within the cage of the talons. All about him was open sky. The walls and roof of the tower room had been cracked away like the top of an egg, and thrown to the howling winds.
All that remained was the stone floor, Kirsten’s sprawled body, and the pit.
The dragon did not speak. Its emerald eyes, burning like green fire, were fixed on the thing still thrashing in the pit.
But there was no need for words. For Lief could hear the dragon’s heart beating, loud as thunder, thudding into his mind, crashing through the relentless song of the Sister of the North.
He took one hand from the emerald in the Belt of Deltora and seized one of the talons that caged him. He felt the talon’s razor-sharp edge cut into his hand, felt the warm blood begin to flow. But he only tightened his grip.
And with fierce joy he saw green flame gush from the dragon’s roaring jaws. He saw the vile thing at the bottom of the pit writhing in a pool of emerald fire.
Again the dragon roared, and again, till the pit was a furnace of swirling flame. The rock blackened, then began to glow.
Searing heat billowed upward. Lief cringed away from it, tried to roll himself into a ball to escape from it.
But still he gripped the dragon’s talon with his left hand, and the great emerald with his right. And still the power flowed through him from one to the other. And still the dragon roared, and the pit burned.
The song of the Sister of the North rose to a cracked, piercing wail. It faltered. It stopped. A blinding flash of white light burst through the emerald flame.
There was a moment’s breathless silence, as though the land was holding its breath.
Then there was a long, low groaning sound. And the next instant, the air was filled with dust—blinding dust as fine as powder, swirling in the wind. Lief screwed his eyes shut, coughing and choking.
He heard the dragon hiss, as if with satisfaction. Then he felt the wind rushing past his ears as it dropped down, straight down, to the ground.
When Lief opened his eyes, he was sure that he was dreaming.
Above him, two dark shapes loomed against a background of hazy blue sky. A gentle breeze blew on his face. Someone was holding his hand.
‘Lief!’
He blinked. Slowly his eyes focused and he realised that the shapes were faces. Smiling faces.
Jasmine and Barda were bending over him. Kree was perched on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli was nuzzling into her neck, his tiny paws clutching her tangled hair.
Lief stared. Now he knew he was dreaming. Tears burned in his eyes as he waited for the vision to tremble and disappear.
But it did not.
‘It was an enchantment,’ Jasmine whispered, putting her arms around him. ‘The spell was broken. We awoke—here.’
‘And the castle was dust,’ said Barda. ‘Nothing but dust, blowing in the wind.’ He leaned forward. ‘Lief, surely this means—?’
Dizzy with joy, yet still hardly daring to believe it, Lief nodded. ‘The Sister of the North is no more,’ he said huskily. ‘And I think Kirsten died at the same moment. It was because—the emerald dragon returned. It—’
‘We saw it,’ Barda said grimly. ‘It dropped you onto the ground with us, then flew away. Perhaps we will see it again. But I would be more than happy not to. It had a stern, fierce eye.’
‘It is the dragon of honour,’ Lief muttered. ‘It came to clean its land of evil, as was its duty. But I fear it is still angry, because we brought another dragon to its place.’
‘It can be as angry as it wishes,’ Jasmine grinned. ‘It did its part, that is all that counts. It did its part, and you did yours, Lief! The Sister is gone. All Kirsten’s sorcery is undone. And we are not the only ones to rejoice. Look!’
She pointed. Lief turned his head.
The castle of the Masked One had vanished.
Where its towers and turrets had risen to the sky, lay a great sheet of smooth, flat rock powdered with fine dust. Two figures stood in the centre of the rock, hand in hand. One was Bede. The other was a slender young woman with long, light brown hair.
‘When the spell was broken, Mariette was freed, just as we were,’ said Jasmine. ‘The dust cleared, and she was standing there. She had been enchanted—imprisoned in her own locket, which Kirsten had taken for herself. But you must have known that, Lief, or why did you take the locket at all?’